Preflight Eviction

The weather turned out to be nicer than forecast, so I went to the airport to do a little flying. An unwelcome sight greeted me: I had squatters in the engine compartment of the airplane:



Like a lot of aircraft owners, I have an engine cover over the nose of the airplane. That keeps birds from building nests on top of the engine, which are no fun to get out, as the straw from the nests falls between the cylinders and it all has to be poked out. I have never had birds come up from underneath the cowling and build a nest on the tubes of the engine mount.

All that crap is one nest. There were four little eggs in it. I can see why they'd like to build a nest there; it is completely sheltered from wind and rain and nothing (other than an irate pilot) is going to disturb them.

I set the nest off to the side, with the eggs in it, cleaned all of that other shit out and then went flying. As I was doing that and preflighting the rest of the airplane, a small bird kept flying by and squawking that seemed to be alarm or upset noises. It was probably one of the parents.

I imagine that I'll find another nest, next time. I might have to get some screening to cram in there between flights.