Broke-ass pro tip: For a fun and engaging hobby buy a bird feeder, birds are the shit and its like 30$ for endless … staring at birds. old people like to say they suck because squirrels get to it, but contrary to popular opinion, squirrels are cool.
Day:1
Bought a bird feeder, nice little house shaped one with the little cage for suet on the side too. Dont know Jack shit about birds. Hang it up in the backyard from the big cedar tree.
Birds: 0 Dollars spend: 45
Day:2
Today I arrived home In the waning sunlight I thought I saw something at the feeder, looked like a big deer. Before I could get to the window I was distracted by the wet squish beneath my foot, I looked at the red pool on the carpet. My nose was met with a familiar sickening sweet smell. Before the gravity of the situation dawned on me I was startled by a sound behind me. “ spilt mah motherfuckin juice…” I sighed and stepped out of the pool of red pop. I resigned to cleaning the carpet as he returned to his cave. Serenaded by obnoxiously loud hiphop music blasting from his room, I cursed his obsession with this drink. You cant even buy it around here. He has his parents ship it in and we have an entire fridge in the garage full of his stockpile. It sickened me, Ive never seen someone subsist off of soda like this.
I went to bed defeated
Birds: 0 Deer: 1? Stains on carpet: 1
Day:3
Today I had the day off. Walking through the kitchen past last nights stain I noticed the feeder was knocked down. I went outside to rehang and refill it. Afterwards I perched myself at the window to watch the birds feast. I had an hour or so of peace where I spotted a robin, Some chickadees, and what might’ve been a cedar waxwing? In the early afternoon my roommate rejoined the land of the living and shambled through the kitchen. Ignoring him I continued to watch the birds nibbling at the feed, repositioning, and nibbling some more. I was interrupted with a bottle of soda thrust into my view. “ hey man sorry about the carpet” I took the peace offering and in turn offered my obnoxious roommate (and only friend) a seat by the window. Looking at the drink in my hand it was dee-licious cotton candy flavor, which I thought was probably the worst flavor for a drink to be. This thought was shattered when he offered to trade me for his chocolate cream pie flavored one. I begrudgingly tried the horrific concoction. I kind of liked it. We watched the birds together and we witnessed a squirrel do some insane parkour to attack our feeder, probably what caused it to fall. “miracles….” My buddy remarked. I had to agree.
Birds: 6 Friendships built:1 Sodas enjoyed: 1
Day 4:
On the way home from work I stopped in a local shop and bought a small bird watching handbook, very nice. I’ve always had an affinity for physical media, sure I could easily pull up the same information on my phone but it feel a lot nicer to flip through my little book. I arrived home at sunset. Saw a few birds, another robin ( hoping its the same one). Roommate shambles past me to the garage. “ WATER! YOU NEED WATER TO SURVIVE!” I half jokingly yelled at him. He smirked and brandished a bottle of …. Rock & rye soda??? (Seriously What the fuck). After dinner I was doing dishes when I heard it, The feeder falling to the ground outside. As I rinsed my soapy hands I heard the feeder bring pawed at. By the time I flipped on the porch light I was only able to see the tail end of something darting out of my yard. I turned around and jumped out of shock, my roommate stood in the hall with his face painted like a moron.
Birds:3 Dollars spent: 14 Clowns I live with: 1 Deer: 1
Day 5:
Figured the vandal from last night was a hungry deer so I laid out some deer corn at the edge of the yard hoping to deter the deer from attacking the feeder again.
Saw the robin again, and an american goldfinch. Roomie joined to watch as we spotted a bushtit, he of course found this name hilarious. Also a few crows came to peck at the corn at the edge of the yard.
After some housework I walking by when I noticed a pair of eyes reflecting back at me. I slowly moved to the window to get a look. The darkness outside and the light inside made it extremely difficult to see any detail. It looked like a large dear, probably a doe since I couldn’t see any antlers. It stood there looking blankly at me. I contemplated turning the porch light on but I decided to just watch. After a while of prolonged man-deer eye contact it did something. With one of its legs it reached up and grabbed the feeder, pulling it down in a motion that reminded me of someone turn off one of those old fashioned light bulbs with the little chain switch thingy. It freaked me out. Ive never seen a deer move its legs like that I have never seen something move in that way before. I was frozen in this kind of fear for a while until I forced myself to turn on the light. But by then it was gone. Disappeared behind our tree.
birds:4 Deer:1 Birds with funny names: 1
Day 6:
spent the better portion of my freetime playing videogames with roomie, he beat my ass big time. In the afternoon I re-hung the feeder extra strong, using some chain from the garage. Not many birds today, Just a few crows. I googled up deer and the definitely cant move like that. It’s possible I mistook the shapes in the dark but like every conspiracy theorist, I know what I saw.
I was awoken by a sound that night a tugging and pawing sound, I crept out to the backdoor and flipped on the light, Expecting to see a potential intruder I was only met with the sight of the bird feeder swinging wildly on its chain.
Birds:2 Games lost: 9001 Spooky happenings: 1
Day 7
I woke up this morning And looked outside to see the feeder still hanging, but empty. I opened the backdoor and was met with a pungent smell. Shooing the crows from the porch I looked at the mess of carrion that lay in the front of the door. Inspecting the bloody twisted form it appeared to be some kind of raccoon Or maybe dog? It was hard to tell, the fur was matted red and brown from the blood and I couldn’t find a head. I hoped it wasn’t one of the neighbors dogs. I bought a flashlight on my way home from work. I stalked by my window all evening. I must have dozed off at some point. I eventually woke up in the middle of the night and made my way to bed. Falling asleep I can recall hearing a gentle methodical pacing outside my window.
Day 8
The patio door has a large crack in it. The carcass of a deer was smeared across the wall and door. I spent the morning cleaning and contemplating what to do. I didn’t refill the feeder. This evening I sat and waited until I heard some commotion outside. I peeked over the windowsill to see those eyes glowing back at me again. I finally got a got a good look at it. Standing six feet tall on all fours I witnessed a pale humanoid form, its face nearly featureless. I watched it raise its hand above its head and pull on the feeder, after a long straining sound the chain snapped loudly as the feeder fell to the ground. I remembered the flashlight in my lap and flipped the light on shining it directly at the creature. Its large wide eyes squinted in response to my light, it shrieked at me and stood up on 2 legs. It ran to the tree and scrambled up the trunk. disappearing into the large canopy.
I haven’t seen it since. I hung the feeder on a different tree without problem. To this day I still look up into the mess of branches all the way up there, thinking about that creature nesting.