woodpeckers and buttercups

[darkoshi]

From my daily notes today:

That woodpecker is intermittently pecking on the sunroom windows again. It goes from one spot to another, not angrily pecking, just a peck peck here and a peck peck there. Here a peck, there a peck, everywhere a peck peck.

I plan to hang up some strips of what they call "bird scare tape" to see if that will deter the woodpecker. This pecking noise isn't very loud or bothersome (unlike the rapid banging on the other side of the house which sometimes wakes me up), but the pecking itself is damaging my window screens. Today I managed to take a video of the bird when it flew to a nearby tree.

.

Last night in bed, I tried to remember names of stuffed animals I had as a child. It bothers me that I can't remember some of their names anymore. I may have written the names down long ago when I remembered them better, but I don't remember where.

The name "Buttercup" came to me as a possibility for the bunny with the wind-up lullabye music box. I don't think that's the right name though, as the rabbit was pink, not yellow. It doesn't feel right either.

Then I imagined Westley from The Princess Bride saying the following (I turned the light back on to write it down as it amused me):
"Oh Princess Buttercup, you're my cup of butter in the morning, my cup of butter in the evening; multiple cups of butter at night! Oh how I love your cups of butter more than a cup of tea!"

All this time, and I never knew the Princess Bride movie was based on an actual book. I thought the book part of it was just part of the movie! Have any of you read the book? If so, how does it compare to the movie?

Comments

[conuly]

Well.

Let me preface my Princess Bride comment by saying this: I used to like it as much as anybody else, and then one day, about ten years ago now, I suddenly looked up and said "Wow, that movie is pretty misogynistic, isn't it?" and since then I haven't been able to watch it.

Anyway, the book isn't any better on that front.

[darkoshi]

I remember you mentioning that about the movie before. I might feel the same way if I watched it all the way through again, but for now I still mainly remember the movie's humor.

[mtbc]

My house in E TN had bird visitors that would like to peck away at the decorative exterior woodwork. Some even pecked away at the special, er, filling foam within, can't remember what it was (spray in the cavity and it expands and hardens), to make a place to nest inside.

[darkoshi]

My mom is having that problem at her house. I will let her try the bird scare tape too, though from reading reviews on Amazon, it is clear that many birds are difficult to scare away, especially permanently.

[lhexan]

Maybe the woodpecker will stop once it fails to discover any hollow spots on your house?

My mother had a Christmas tree planted in her front yard that a woodpecker eventually discovered. (In a city environment no less!) Either its sap was delicious or it was infested with bugs, because the tree acquired rings of holes going all the way around its circumference, and its health declined after that.

[darkoshi]

The place it's pecking isn't even wood. It's just glass windows, screens, and the metal between them.
At first I thought it was going after bugs that might be in the edges of the window frames, but now I think it's been going after its own reflection, thinking it is a rival bird. I hung up the bird scare tape a few days ago, and it has seemed to work so far. So I'm hoping it will continue working. One of my screens is so badly damaged already I'll need to replace it. The others have small holes. I don't think it has been pecking at the screens themselves, but was using them to get a foot/claw-hold while pecking at the side of the windows without the screens.

I've seen trees with circular rings of holes like that.