When my daughter asked me if we could get a bird feeder, I thought it would be the perfect bonding experience, and a way to teach her about nature. But what started as a fun little project took a turn for the worse.
It all started a few weeks ago when my 8-year-old daughter and I spotted a Henslow’s Sparrow zipping from tree to tree, little twigs steady in its beak, looking for a place to nest before deciding on our big oak tree. My daughter and I had always loved nature, so it came to no surprise to me when she asked for a bird feeder.
We ended up getting a little princess castle shaped one that had a little mesh tray out front to drain the water. We found the most accessible and sturdy branch and I lifted her up to place it on and fill the seeds. We also set up a couple chairs on the deck facing the birdfeeder and a couple of binoculars so we could check in on the sparrow from a distance.
For the first few days everything was normal, the birdfeeder was a hit with the sparrow, and we got a lot of view time of it with no problems. One day though we noticed that the feeder was completely empty even though we had just filled it a few hours earlier. Thinking it was just a fluke I refilled it and went about my day. It didn’t stop there though, every time we filled it, the feeder would be empty in a few hours. I thought what any rational person would, it had to be a squirrel or another wild animal climbing the tree to eat it.
Not wanting to have to keep fighting whatever it was from eating all the seeds I decided to invest in a pole to hang it off and greased it up so the squirrel couldn’t latch on. But the next time we went out to check on everything, the birdfeeder had fallen on the ground and was void of the seeds. I picked it back up and tried again a few more times to the same results. My daughter was getting very frustrated with this and so was I, so we decided to go out and get one of those anti-squirrel bird feeders that have only a small opening for the birds to see if that worked. When I got up the next morning though, not only was it on the ground empty, but the fucking thing was cracked I’m half. I was pissed now and almost ready to say screw it and find something else to do but my daughter begged me to continue because she loved the bird. Fed up but not wanting to disappoint my daughter, I went and got; a new birdfeeder, a motion camera that I could sync up to get notifications on my phone, and a bb gun to take care of the squirrel that was causing me this headache. I took the day off work so I could set this all up while my daughter was at school and take care of the problem without scarring her.
I began to doze off as I waited by the door when the motion detector went off. Picking up my phone to see the culprit, I dropped my phone in dismay. I quickly grabbed it to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. On the screen, lumbering about was a creature I had never seen before; It was the size of a bear, walked upright like a clumsy human, had a giant snout like an ant eater, some sort of tentacle likes things shooting out of its back, thick long sharp claws, and eyes so black and soulless that if you stared at them for any length of time, you’d surely see your death. The bb gun wasn’t going to kill this thing, so I watched as it walked over to the feeder, grabbing it with its tentacles and ripping the feeder in half before sucking up all the seeds before returning to the forest at the edge of my property.
I took the feeder down that night to my daughter’s protests; I knew I could show her the video and she would understand but I couldn’t do that to her. Once it was down, I thought it would finally be over and the creature would go away, but last night told me, that wasn’t going to happen.
I awoke from a dead sleep to a loud boom coming from outside. Still groggy I walked downstairs to investigate when I noticed I had a notification saying there was a motion detected 6 minutes before. I slowly crept over to a window overlooking where the crashing sounds was coming from and looked out. In front of me, with those eyes that will forever be seared into my brain was the creature staring at me, banging its snout against the sound of the house as if beckoning me over. Even though I was shaking with fear and feeling faint, I put on a brave front, I got as close as I could when the creature said, “feeeeeeeedddddd mmmmeeeeeeeeeee.” Its deep demonic voice sounded like it was more mimicking our language instead of speaking it which cause my stomach to almost drop through the floor. Obeying, I walked over to the patio door, grabbing the bag of bird seed and throwing it outside before locking it and running back upstairs shaking. I got a notification a few minutes later, watching it somber off with no care in the world.
Suffice to say, I am buying a ton of bird seed from now on, so this creature doesn’t harm me or my daughter. Does anyone by chance know what this thing is and how I can get rid of it? Before you say gun, it is pretty hard to get one in my country and I feel like this would just piss it off and I need to protect my daughter at all costs.