“The Birds” on Mullett Lake

 

By Donald Holmes Lewis

Published on July 31, 2009 in the Cheboygan Daily Tribune.

 

     And I thought carpenter ants were the scourge of my summer. Wrong. Now, each morning when I plant my feet on the floor beside my bed and rub the sleep from my eyes, I look down towards the lake and there they are. A crowd of herring seagulls huddling tight together on top of our Shore Station like emperor penguins. Every morning I run down the dock waving my arms as though I’m a giant bird of prey taking flight and they disperse lazily out into the water fifty yards away to wait for my retreat.

     For years, a clan of twenty to thirty determined gulls has been big trouble for my neighbor John, his white metal dock just perfect for them. Cool to their webbed feet. Warm in the sun. Free of stanchions. Shallows teeming with small crawfish. A restaurant and day spa all in one.

     Every summer John dutifully washes his dock after he chases them off, swearing as he scrubs at the mess one section at a time. He claims to have tried everything in the seagull fighting handbook. Owl dummies with flapping wings, screeching eagle noise makers, grape based misters, whirligigs of all kinds.  But as fate would have it, almost four times as many birds arrived last month while he was gone. Right after a painstaking new paint job and with just weeks to go before hosting his only daughter’s big fat lakeside wedding.

     My wife and I tried scaring them off by driving our little boat at them over and over, circling madly around the end deck, but to no avail. They’d just hop in the water and look at us like we were crazy people with a broken rudder. The big ones, the great granddaddies of all the rest, didn’t move. When John and his family returned, his dock was not the least bit white anymore.

     After two days of slave labor with giant brushes and bleach, John and his wife Frankie had their dock looking like new again. He put two chaises out on the end deck, but unfortunately the gulls seemed to appreciate the new furnishings and came back with a vengeance. Then he stood guard all afternoon with a long broom and swung it over his head whenever they swooped in. In a last ditch effort, he took all his heavy lawn furniture to the farthest out sections, turned the chairs upside down, and tightened string around the feet in an enormous Bohemian cobweb. Much to everyone’s surprise, it worked.

     That’s when my troubles started.

     First, it was just the big boys. They arrived last week the morning after John erected his masterpiece. Four of them. They were testing out my plastic cover tarp as Roosting Heaven Two. I calmly walked down my dock and barked a shrill “hey’ and they took off like they knew I meant business. So much for those guys.

     With a persistent rainy day settling in, I took to the keyboard to catch up on work and didn’t check on things out on the lake for hours. On my way to the kitchen, I saw them. The same huge flock that had been plaguing John’s little pier were perched on my cover. I recognized the biggest one. Grey and confident. John calls him George. One of the advance guard from earlier in the day. There had to be a hundred of his colleagues having a crawfish picnic and talking about how much they like their new place. Better view, too.

      I ran down the dock waving a canoe paddle over my head and they reluctantly took to the sky. But the way George soared in great loops above me said they’d be back as soon as I returned to shore.

     This was going to be a war and I’d have to wage it quickly and effectively. Shock and awe if necessary. These birds were settling in like my nightmares after watching Hitchcock’s “The Birds” when I was a kid.     

     I thought about enlisting John’s help but one look at the menacing menagerie at the end of his dock told me to go elsewhere for the right strategy.

     A little research on the internet threw a bunch of options at me as did my other neighbors though I sensed their worry that they’d be next if I was successful. I stuck to the digital references. One blog website is devoted to the subject. A company called Seagull Control Systems sells all kinds of things: netting, spikes, birdwire, sticky gel, ropes with bright colored pennants like car dealerships use, and even the funny smelling misters. There was an article about the great success of a duck club in Utah (the seagull is their state bird) that released two weaner pigs on their property.

     None of these products got a passing grade from my wife, especially the weaner pigs.

     I went to the Summer Store in Indian River and bought a loon windmill. I put it up and George and company immediately landed in mass in a strong wind, the whirling waterfowl nothing but a curiosity. I cleaned the entire dock and tarp, fresh as a daisy. More seagulls. They seemed to appreciate the housekeeping.

     Tomorrow I plan on staying out there all day in a clown suit if I have to. With the canoe paddle.