Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Myna Problem

There seems to be two myna birds who have taken an interest in the little nook above my front door. I assume that they want to build a nest because every time I return home I find all sorts of twigs strewn all over the place. Having a nest above my front door isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, a lot of people might enjoy seeing man and beast coexisting in a one-bedroom apartment. Personally, I feel that the birds and their nest is more of a nuisance than anything else. For starters, this particular pair of myna birds seem to be first timers at nest building, because much of the twigs and plant fibers that they hauled up seem to be resting on my porch, rather than fashioned into a nest. So when I come back home each day, I find all sorts of crap on porch, which leads me to my next complaint. These birds have also plastered much of porch floorboards and walls with their shit. Now for the main reason I disapprove of these birds: mites.
Back in the Fall of 2005 I had the unfortunate luck of having my bedroom window situated under a pair of nesting doves. Originally I was pretty psyched about observing the hatching and development of the two doves. I witnessed their first attempts at flight and ultimately their final flight away from the nest. After the doves left only nest remained, but inside the nest were bird mites in search of a new host. After descending a few feet and crossing through the mesh screen the mites found my bed and a new host. Fortunately, bird mites cannot survive on a human host, but that didn't prevent the mites from biting me and trying to lodge themselves in my bellybutton. Over the next two weeks my torso was covered in bites that caused me a lot of discomfort.
All I know is that I need to do something or else history might repeat itself.

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