Usually they leave willingly, but one or two of them have developed a taste for the home brew, and require persuasion to head off for the stone cold sober waters of the Antarctic.
The penguins steal my beer, but there are worse pests than penguins. For years the islands have been infested with Indian Mynah birds. Originally they came from Malaysia I think, but here they have run amok in the absence of any natural predators.
There are now millions of mynahs, and they are regarded as vermin. They eat the food that the parrots depend on, so some native species are dying out. And they gang up to torment my dog, swooping on her with a deafening squawking when she goes in the garden.
Back in September, just before I went overseas to check my pension fund, I had a brainwave. I would cull the worst birds, the ones making the dog's life hell. So I sat quietly in the garden, called the dog out, and waited till they showed up. Using an adult-size catapult (technically illegal here) and M&Ms, I shot the basturns as they flew in. The theme from 633 Squadron ran through my head. And the dog got very excited. In her mind, I was at long last showing some promise as a top dog, leading the pack in a real wild food hunt.
Most of my shots missed of course, but I had a few lucky hits and the birds got the message. For once, the sky was silent and the dog could relax. But as we all know, everything balances up, and for every action there will be an opposite re-action. Eventually.
Meanwhile, I went away to Europe for a month.
Soon after I returned here, I went out to do some gardening.
Have you ever seen the Hitchcock film "The Birds"? It's a preposterous movie about a woman who is attacked by crows. An unlikely story and a boring film. But as I stood in the garden, mynahs flew in from all over the neighbourhood. Ignoring the dog, they took it in turns to dive-bomb me, nearly blowing my eardrums out with their racket. They had remembered me - the guy who shot at them a couple of months earlier. Clever birds.
They're turning the garden into a no-go area for me. I should have thought of that. I may have to escalate.
If you missed previous HNTs, you can access all the old half baked thursday posts here.
This is a freelance Taoist blog.
Every true story contains a wee lie.
And every lie contains a grain of truth.
