Pan had developed a habit of lying in wait on the upstairs deck early every morning, in a perfect spot for an unsuspecting bird to alight nearby on the wall. It was unfortunately a reasonably successful strategy, so I decided to try one of those plastic owls to ward off the birds. Pan and Hera’s different reactions to first seeing it was amusing:
And yes, the guardian owl has been effective. It’s been well over a year (I’m backdating this post) and almost every bird has stayed away from the deck but Pan continued to go out before dawn every morning for most of a year, oblivious to why the birds stopped coming. All except this one little guy who came along many months later. He was apparently too smart for his own good and not fooled by the plastic owl. He even seemed to taunt Pan through the window over the course of a week or two. However, I’m guessing this is also that same bird that Pan eventually caught a little later.
