Why Owls Are Better Than Viagra

I was busy working away at my computer in my home office early on a Tuesday, when suddenly …

Rat-tat-tat Rat-tat-tat Rat-tat-tat RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!

What the heck is that? I thought.  The loud, mind-numbing, noise stopped for a while, but then periodically returned.

I looked out the window almost expecting to see a road worker with a jackhammer, but nothing.  A house up the street had recently advertised auto repairs and I thought it could be an air wrench.

The noise stopped later in the morning and I could finally work in peace.  But the next morning, about the same time, Rat-tat-tat Rat-tat-tat Rat-tat-tat RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!

This time it sounded as if the noise was coming from right above me.  I ran outside, but as soon as I got to the corner of the house the noise suddenly stopped.   I repeated this process several times that morning. However as soon as I got to the same spot, silence.  Something evil was happening on my roof, but what?

The next morning the racket returned eerily about the same time.  But this time I quietly slipped out the door at the other end of the house and moved stealthily like a ninja (okay like a tall, fat, middle-aged, ninja) and approached the roof from the other side of the house. It was then I caught the culprit red-handed. Or should I say I caught him red-headed?  Sitting right above my window was a red-headed woodpecker, pecking the hell out of my roof.  I made eye contact with the bird.  He looked angry, but not as angry as I was.

Stupid pecker. Stupid, stupid pecker, I thought. 

The morning peckings continued.   It was very difficult to work with the pecker frequently going Rat-tat-tat Rat-tat-tat Rat-tat-tat RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT! right above my head at random times every morning.

Stupid, stupid, pecker!

This was ironic.  For many years I had to deal will stupid peckers at work.  Some of these peckers had the title of director, some of them vice president, and yes, some of them I even called “boss”.  Now I was not in an office, I was working from home, and I still had to deal with a stupid pecker.

But why was this stupid pecker hammering on my roof every morning?  Of course I complained to my wife about it.

“I know why the woodpecker is doing this”, she explained. “He’s mad because you stopped feeding him”.

I initially thought this was ridiculous.  Who is she, the bird whisperer?

I had been putting corn, seeds and nuts out for the birds and squirrels during the brutal winter.  This had attracted a significant number of cardinals, blue jays and yes, woodpeckers to my deck.  The power pecking had begun the week after I had stopped the daily, morning, feeding.  The racket always started just about the time I put the feed out and the birds would show up for breakfast.  Somehow that hungry pecker had figured out the exact spot in the house where I worked and was pounding the hell out of the roof right above me.

This wasn’t a stupid pecker!  This was a nasty, intelligent, savant-type of pecker and boy was he pissed at me!  This was equivalent of an angry customer pounding his fist on the counter.  I was playing a real life version of Angry Birds.

I was not about to give into this pecker intimidation and resume the feedings, but the morning peckings continued.  This was until the stupid pecker let loose early one Saturday morning awakening my wife.  Like many problems in my home, they persist until my wife gets upset and then things happen.  That afternoon she went shopping and returned with two large, expensive, fake, plastic owls which were intended to scare away the woodpecker. She placed the owls at opposite ends of the house.

I thought this was the most stupid idea ever.  I was not happy about it at all. This pecker was surely smart enough not to be fooled by ridiculous fake owls.  But very soon after that, the peckings stopped. 

Owls scare the hell out of nasty peckers!

So what did I learn?

Woodpeckers hate owls

Owls dominate woodpeckers

Stupid peckers, wise owls

Stupid husband, smart wife.

If only I would have known about this sooner, I would have gladly taken an owl to work with me to scare away all those nasty peckers I encountered over all these years.

And so concludes the story of how my wife getting two large fake plastic hooters took care of my pecker problem.