The Blue Bird in My Garage

This morning, before I headed off to work, I thought I'd water the grass for a bit. It's been very hot here, and each day, the flowers sag a little more in this excessive heat, so I knew they needed a break. I set the sprinkler up in the front yard (as well as one in the back) and let it rain on the grass and the annuals for about 20 minutes. I did not notice anything out of the ordinary.

When it was time for me to leave for work, I came outside through the front door of the house, turned off the sprinkler and proceeded towards the garage. All seemed fine. I pushed the buttons for the password from the outside pad on the side of the garage door, and up it went when suddenly, three birds hopped into the garage. I did not notice them before. They were not waiting by the garage door when I got there. Where the heck did they come from?

Two of the birds, I thought they were Blue Birds, hung out on the cement floor in the garage as if this was the most fabulous place they had ever been in. They certainly were not new-born's because they were pudgy and fluffy. I knew the tree branch near the garage sometimes had nests in it, and I wondered if they had fallen out, but as I mentioned they seemed too big to just fall out of there. This is where I can now admit I was scared. The way they'd rushed in was like the movie "The Birds" except with not as many birds and lower to the ground. You get my point though; I was a wimp.

I grabbed the extended brush-broom thingy that my husband bought and used once to help get leaves off of the top of the gutters and began shooing the birds out of the garage. I didn't want to hurt them, and they were not as afraid of me as I thought they'd be, so I added a sound while I waved the brush around trying to push them towards the driveway. The sound, well, it wasn't pretty. It was the same sort of sound one makes when inside of a house and they have already seen the mouse, and are already on the table top, but now they are shrieking thinking that this will make the mouse say, "Well, all that shrieking is annoying. I am outta here!"

With the shooing and the shrieking, the first bird actually flew out. Not at a great height, but he or she was happy to get out of the way. The other one, well, he waited patiently outside of the door in the garage that leads into the house hoping I was letting him in for some tea and crumpets. When I waved the brush at him, making my wild shrieking sounds again, he finally hopped out on to the driveway. I had to keep waving and shrieking at him until he went to the lawn.

Finally, I thought. All gone. But wait! I remembered THREE birds going in. Where was the other one? I looked around the garage and did not see anything, and I had to leave for work. I got in my car, drove down the driveway and pushed the remote button from the car to close the garage door.

When I arrived home and opened the garage door, there on the far wall was a bird sitting on one of the wall hooks. Waiting. It's head held high. This was no baby. I took a closer look. This was an adult bird. This must be the mom! Poor thing must have been so upset being left without her babies. Thank goodness she was okay. The door was open and now she could leave. But nothing happened. She stayed put. I grabbed the brush again to swat near her so she would fly towards the opening of the garage, which she did. She flew right in between the garage door (which was up) and the ceiling, trapping herself in. I closed the garage door, and she flew back to the back wall. She did not want to leave. Maybe she thought the babies were still in there. We danced like this, back and forth, for about ten minutes until I decided to just leave the garage door open so she could eventually fly out. Problem solved.

It's been 3 hours, and she's still in there! And I am still scared! So, I will just have to wait until the husband gets home. The thing is, when my husband gets home, I think he is going to be scared too!