Caught on Tape
This is true.
I'm pretty sure the birds are pecking my strawberries. I wanted to stop them and so I traded some weekend to buy Bird Scare Tape from my least favourite big box hardware store.
However, I've been holding off stringing the tape up because October 18-24 was Australia's Backyard Bird count and I was keen to participate by sitting in my backyard with a coffee and counting birds for twenty minutes. I was even going to write a journal entry about it! And you thought I was being cynical about the excitement in my life happening exclusively in my backyard.
One noisy miner, five New Holland honey eaters, and pair of common blackbirds later I decided I was ready to start scaring birds away from my garden. Today I opened the packaging and inside was not really tape, just a crinkly ribbon that was red on one side and shiny on the other. I wasn't entirely sure how this was supposed to scare birds. A flash of reflected light and a crinkle in the breeze was apparently enough to trigger some ingrained hindbrain instinct to fight or flight in my tiny bird frenemies. Oh well, more berries for me.
The tape was not sticky. I figured I would string it up on the truss for the raspberries growing over the strawberry patch. I cut a decent length and walked into the backyard to peg it up. On my way to the strawberries I noticed one of the million mulberries on the tree was looking pretty plump and ripe, so I stretched up to pluck it off and I popped it in my mouth. At the same moment a gust of wind blew in, and the tape in my hands fluttered briefly, appearing in my peripheral vision for long enough to trigger some ingrained hindbrain instinct to shit myself.
I guess my berries are going to be safe.
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