Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young. You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.

• Deuteronomy 22:6-7

The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

• Deuteronomy 28:25-26

Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds touch them by day or the wild animals by night.

• 2 Samuel 21:10

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

• Matthew 6:26

Let’s look at these strange, in some cases, Bible verses about birds.  The first Deuteronomy Scripture is about the Law and not disturbing the mother bird in her nest.  The second Scripture pertains to when Israel goes against God and God’s Law, there will be no one there to chase the birds away who come to peck at their dead carcasses.  The third talks about dead carcasses and Rizpah, who chased the birds away so that the dead carcasses could be preserved.  And finally, Jesus teaches us not to worry because God takes care of the birds, and we are worth more.

In some way, these all seem to fit my lament.

Now for the photo above.  That photo was taken as my son and his children fed seagulls off the back of a ferry travelling between Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula south of Houston, Texas in March of 2017, about a week before my mother-in-law passed away.

When you feed seagulls from a ferry, there is always the chance, once the seagull has enough to eat, that the seagulls will void some of the food through its digestive system and you could be the recipient of bird droppings.  Taking stale bread, or in this case fresh bread, on the ferry is a great idea, but it has its hazards.

Now for the reason for this post, my lament.

I have had no problem with robins nesting in the rafters of our back porch, but it seems grackles have invaded one of the many robin nests.  Last year, I saw the broken robin eggs on the deck.  But this year, they seem to be marking their territory.  The grackles do not want our car to park on the carport next to the nest that they stole from the robins.  So they have dive-bombed the SUV in two specific places.  For me, they have made a diagonal streak across the windshield right where I need to see to drive down the road.  On my wife’s side of the SUV they dive-bomb the passenger side door, near the door handle.

Why such specific places?  Can I not just wash the SUV?

I have.  And the morning after I washed the SUV the bird droppings were back in almost the same exact spots.  So I washed the SUV for the second time in one week.  The bird droppings were back the very next morning in the same spots.  And while the passenger side door can be cleaned by the automated carwash, the bird droppings seem to become part of the windshield.  It takes washing by hand and scrubbing hard.  Just to have the window clean for a few hours.

I would love it if Rizpah came by to chase the birds away.  This is getting ridiculous.

But this latest dive-bombing was off target.  The windshield droppings were near the corner of the windshield where the oil change reminder sticker is and the side door droppings are very low on the back side door of the passenger side, where we might not accidentally rub our clothing against it.

I have learned the hard way on past vehicles that bird droppings can be very corrosive, destroying the clear coat finish.  I will need to wash the car again.  I am thinking of joined the carwash club across from the church.  For the price of two carwashes each month, you have endless use of the carwash.

And all because of a bird that stole a nest from a former “tenant.”  Please don’t tell our landlady that I sublet the back porch.  She does not wish for me to do any subletting.

But God takes care of the birds.  He takes care of us.  But at the present time, it is rather doubtful if God protects our SUV from the birds.

I suppose more intense prayers are in order.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.