Lure Faerie Saga
May. 30th, 2012 01:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potato_headAlright so...the faerie situation is resolved now, and I will accordingly EXPLAIN EVERYTHING. Because Paige was there for most of it but I didn't explain things to her like why, exactly, we were doing certain things. And I think only ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beasts_and_men really knows everything that happened, because I was freaking out on them as it happened.
Soooo...first, to set up the overall situation. I went out to have a look at the woods about a week ago, with the dog, because he wanted to go in for some reason (I was walking him the backyard on his leash because workmen were in the front yard doing the driveway; he probably thought I meant to take him on a proper walk in the woods). The path in was so overgrown as to be un-navigable. Tripper seemed to be convinced we could get through somehow, but he also still thinks he fits in a person's lap.
This struck me as really strange, because that path has been there since we moved in; it's pretty naturally formed by the fact that it goes along a fence on one side, making it difficult for things to grow there.
The rock that marks the edge of the treeline in one corner - that also marks the mouth of the faerie-maintained path that used to lead to the predatory tree - has also been covered by a tree-branch that is so low-hanging that it pretty much hides this rock. Which is enormous, about 3'5" tall? And wide enough to sit on.
I started to suspect this was some sort of defensive effort on the part of something that had moved in. So I made the possibly not very smart choice of leaving out an offering on the rock (one of the cookie sandwiches I made last week). Tripper accompanied me out to put it down because MFEOIMRFMSLMFE FOOD but when he realized I was going to the treeline he refused to go any closer and stayed halfway across the yard.
Then, skipping forward to Sunday night...I'm sitting alone in the living room with the window behind me open. It's a bit past midnight. Tripper has, unusually, refused to go to bed and insists on staying in the living room with me, which he usually only does if I have food, which I didn't. I start hearing a bird singing a morning call.
Now, I have been around birds that get confused and start singing morning calls in the middle of the night...there's one or two birds at school who do their dawn calls around 3AM...but IME it generally happens somewhere with a lot of ambient light, i.e. bright streetlights, etc. These are almost-rural suburbs; there's a cow field a minute's walk down the road; there are no streetlights on our street. It's very dark out at night. And this has never happened around here before. So I remark on it to Felix, and as I do, the call changes...to another morning call, but by a different species; but it's still markedly the same bird.
I'm also getting the strong feeling that it's in distress, for some reason. Here's my convo with Felix from the time; it's only two minutes after I first started hearing the bird.
poto_heart: ((i want to go find it now, this sounds like some sort of confused expression of distress)
beasts_and_men: ((awwwww))
poto_heart: ((wtf is that sound))
poto_heart: ((yeah okay some of these aren't even natural sounds))
beasts_and_men: ((maybe it is a faerie playing about lol))
poto_heart: ((that was a car alarm))
beasts_and_men: ((haha awesome))
poto_heart: ((...that is possible))
I listen for awhile, and it continues to cycle through the morning calls of various birds in the area, as well as what sounded like a frog call and an attempt at mimicking a car alarm. Basically, it sounded like this bird was cycling through mimicking everything it had heard one morning. At this point, I'm guessing it's a starling, since they're the most mimic-capable birds that live around here, and the pitch was right. Tripper kept jumping up to bark out the front window, then settling back down. As you can see, Felix pretty quickly figured out that something was off - it had occurred to me that it might be a faerie as well, but the idea didn't stick well; I was convinced for some time that it had to be a bird.
So I sat there and listened to it cycle through this pattern of calls about twice - the whole cycle took around five minutes - then Tripper jumps up and goes upstairs. Which is unusual behavior for him; the only time he goes up there, generally, is if somebody convinces him to, or if either me or dad are upstairs hanging out. Dad was asleep, and I was still downstairs, obviously; I heard him go into my room, then come immediately back down and ring the bell to go out. I think he was checking to see if the cat was inside (she naps in my room a lot). He stood on the deck for a minute or so, then watched the cat make her way to the deck and escorted her inside before going to patrol outside. The cat stood at the window and waited for him to come in - not something she usually does.
At this point, the odd behavior had me a bit freaked out, and I was still convinced it was a real bird.
tanzelt: ((lol now i am concern though because wtf))
beasts_and_men: ((lol yeah))
tanzelt: ((earthquake? are we going to have an earthquake?))
tanzelt: ((faerie attack?))
beasts_and_men: ((something is going onnnn))
tanzelt: ((WHAT IS HAPPENING))
beasts_and_men: ((I DO NOT KNOWWWW))
Then, the bird moved further away - or was quieter - and Tripper came in and went straight to bed, and Nikka went back outside. After a few minutes of this I came to a realization - I could hear ambient noise outside again. Which I hadn't been hearing when the bird was closer. Including the nearby highway, which is pretty audible. I could also think much more clearly now that the bird call was more distant. I proceeded to basically freak out on Felix, then called Paige downstairs to have her listen; now it was moving closer again. She listened with me, and agreed that the ambient noise went completely silent when the bird call got close; she also told me she had heard the same bird the night before.
We shut all the windows so we wouldn't be able to hear the bird any more. An hour or so later, Paige mentioned to me that she had found the body of a bird earlier that day, with no visible injuries/illness or any indication that it had broken its neck, in a very relaxed position. (This was interestingly reminiscent of how we found Tybalt's corpse after he was apparently killed by the faerie tree.) She described it to me and I identified it as, unsurprisingly, a starling.
I was intending to put this all in one post, but it's late and I'm exhausted? So I'll finish up with another post tomorrow on how we took care of the situation and etc.
beasts_and_men really knows everything that happened, because I was freaking out on them as it happened.Soooo...first, to set up the overall situation. I went out to have a look at the woods about a week ago, with the dog, because he wanted to go in for some reason (I was walking him the backyard on his leash because workmen were in the front yard doing the driveway; he probably thought I meant to take him on a proper walk in the woods). The path in was so overgrown as to be un-navigable. Tripper seemed to be convinced we could get through somehow, but he also still thinks he fits in a person's lap.
This struck me as really strange, because that path has been there since we moved in; it's pretty naturally formed by the fact that it goes along a fence on one side, making it difficult for things to grow there.
The rock that marks the edge of the treeline in one corner - that also marks the mouth of the faerie-maintained path that used to lead to the predatory tree - has also been covered by a tree-branch that is so low-hanging that it pretty much hides this rock. Which is enormous, about 3'5" tall? And wide enough to sit on.
I started to suspect this was some sort of defensive effort on the part of something that had moved in. So I made the possibly not very smart choice of leaving out an offering on the rock (one of the cookie sandwiches I made last week). Tripper accompanied me out to put it down because MFEOIMRFMSLMFE FOOD but when he realized I was going to the treeline he refused to go any closer and stayed halfway across the yard.
Then, skipping forward to Sunday night...I'm sitting alone in the living room with the window behind me open. It's a bit past midnight. Tripper has, unusually, refused to go to bed and insists on staying in the living room with me, which he usually only does if I have food, which I didn't. I start hearing a bird singing a morning call.
Now, I have been around birds that get confused and start singing morning calls in the middle of the night...there's one or two birds at school who do their dawn calls around 3AM...but IME it generally happens somewhere with a lot of ambient light, i.e. bright streetlights, etc. These are almost-rural suburbs; there's a cow field a minute's walk down the road; there are no streetlights on our street. It's very dark out at night. And this has never happened around here before. So I remark on it to Felix, and as I do, the call changes...to another morning call, but by a different species; but it's still markedly the same bird.
I'm also getting the strong feeling that it's in distress, for some reason. Here's my convo with Felix from the time; it's only two minutes after I first started hearing the bird.
poto_heart: ((i want to go find it now, this sounds like some sort of confused expression of distress)
beasts_and_men: ((awwwww))
poto_heart: ((wtf is that sound))
poto_heart: ((yeah okay some of these aren't even natural sounds))
beasts_and_men: ((maybe it is a faerie playing about lol))
poto_heart: ((that was a car alarm))
beasts_and_men: ((haha awesome))
poto_heart: ((...that is possible))
I listen for awhile, and it continues to cycle through the morning calls of various birds in the area, as well as what sounded like a frog call and an attempt at mimicking a car alarm. Basically, it sounded like this bird was cycling through mimicking everything it had heard one morning. At this point, I'm guessing it's a starling, since they're the most mimic-capable birds that live around here, and the pitch was right. Tripper kept jumping up to bark out the front window, then settling back down. As you can see, Felix pretty quickly figured out that something was off - it had occurred to me that it might be a faerie as well, but the idea didn't stick well; I was convinced for some time that it had to be a bird.
So I sat there and listened to it cycle through this pattern of calls about twice - the whole cycle took around five minutes - then Tripper jumps up and goes upstairs. Which is unusual behavior for him; the only time he goes up there, generally, is if somebody convinces him to, or if either me or dad are upstairs hanging out. Dad was asleep, and I was still downstairs, obviously; I heard him go into my room, then come immediately back down and ring the bell to go out. I think he was checking to see if the cat was inside (she naps in my room a lot). He stood on the deck for a minute or so, then watched the cat make her way to the deck and escorted her inside before going to patrol outside. The cat stood at the window and waited for him to come in - not something she usually does.
At this point, the odd behavior had me a bit freaked out, and I was still convinced it was a real bird.
tanzelt: ((lol now i am concern though because wtf))
beasts_and_men: ((lol yeah))
tanzelt: ((earthquake? are we going to have an earthquake?))
tanzelt: ((faerie attack?))
beasts_and_men: ((something is going onnnn))
tanzelt: ((WHAT IS HAPPENING))
beasts_and_men: ((I DO NOT KNOWWWW))
Then, the bird moved further away - or was quieter - and Tripper came in and went straight to bed, and Nikka went back outside. After a few minutes of this I came to a realization - I could hear ambient noise outside again. Which I hadn't been hearing when the bird was closer. Including the nearby highway, which is pretty audible. I could also think much more clearly now that the bird call was more distant. I proceeded to basically freak out on Felix, then called Paige downstairs to have her listen; now it was moving closer again. She listened with me, and agreed that the ambient noise went completely silent when the bird call got close; she also told me she had heard the same bird the night before.
We shut all the windows so we wouldn't be able to hear the bird any more. An hour or so later, Paige mentioned to me that she had found the body of a bird earlier that day, with no visible injuries/illness or any indication that it had broken its neck, in a very relaxed position. (This was interestingly reminiscent of how we found Tybalt's corpse after he was apparently killed by the faerie tree.) She described it to me and I identified it as, unsurprisingly, a starling.
I was intending to put this all in one post, but it's late and I'm exhausted? So I'll finish up with another post tomorrow on how we took care of the situation and etc.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 09:02 am (UTC)Lol it was flirting
no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 06:55 pm (UTC)Gave u its best come hither w/ dead bird voice.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 12:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 04:37 pm (UTC)Thnx bb ♥
no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 02:10 am (UTC)DDD: DNW. And if they are related to vampiric lore DEFINITELY DNW D: Glad it's over <3