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Ed's hilarious account reminded me of my recent troubles with a certain protected migratory scarlet-red songbird. For the third consecutive year, this evolutionary dead-end appeared in the spring. Every morning, at around half-past six, he made the rounds of the windows, attacking his own reflection, and hitting the windows with his beak. "Hitch" we called him. It was the window above the stairwell that was the loudest. Sounded like someone was throwing a baseball against the house. We would get out of bed and yell at him, he would fly to a different window, but make his rounds and soon be back at the stair window. We thought of nets, plastic owls, decals, whatever, but the whole point of building this house was for the views, so there are lots of windows, and he would just move to the next one. This year he pushed us over the top and into action. The cat, a two year-old arboreal domestic short-tempered, had taken a keen interest in him this year. One morning about a month ago, we were again awakened by the bird, shooed him away, and tried to return to sleep. Some minutes later we were awakened by a huge crash in the stairwell. Seems the cat had followed the short ledge around the top of the stairwell to where she could jump onto a shelf that hangs under the stairwell window, about twelve feet above the landing. There she lay in wait for "Hitch", and when he returned to strike at the window, she struck out at him. However, the window being a casement type, the screen is on the inside, and I imagine when she latched onto it with all four feet, she pulled it out of the jamb, and down the whole thing fell onto the stairs, cat and all. The cat skittered away with wounded pride, and the screen bounced down the stairs after her. Alright, that does it; out with the pellet gun, I don't care if it's protected or not, this is defense of the homeland. Soon I was taking out window screens and setting up sniper positions in the upstairs bedrooms. Getting off a clean shot was difficult; you sure don't want to shoot out an insulated window. I had my Ed-like episode of slipping out the front door in my underpants to try to take him out from under the tree in front. One of the windows on his rounds was the tool shed behind the house, and I had a pretty good line out the upstairs bedroom window. After about twenty-five shots I had figured out the trajectory, but Hitch was beginning to get nervous about all of the flying lead. Finally, he paused on a branch, I squeezed the trigger, and thought I saw a tiny puff of feathers float to the ground as the bird flew away. I went down to look; yep, about six tiny, downy, red-tipped grey feathers. I must have grazed him. He was back the next morning. I was insane by this point. Staking out windows like some SWAT-team sniper, I couldn't shake the thought of Elmer Fudd: Kill the Wabbit, kill the Wabbit... My God, this went on for days, and then mercifully, magically, mysteriously, he left. Hasn't been back for weeks. Maybe he finally found a Mrs. to enjoy the spring with. Every time I look at the pellet gun I think of Elmer and feel a little shiver of self-recognition.