Since I know you’ve all been dying to know..

XBox Live Achievement Bird was a bird that tended to hang around the exterior of my house, occasionally making a noise surprisingly similar to the noise made when unlocking an achievement on the XBox 360.  I’ve mentioned him (her?) a few times on my Twitter account, particularly when he’s spoken up at particularly achievement-worthy moments.  Physically, I would estimate that the bird is about seven or eight centimetres in height, and is mostly a dusty-black in colour.  I haven’t yet managed to catch it on film, since it rarely stays in one spot for more than a second or two, but I’ll eventually manage to get a photo.

About a month ago, he (she?) began nesting in the house’s gutters, and the cute “Achievement Unlocked!” noise changed into shrieking trills, which it would emit about once every two seconds, continuously from around six in the morning to about eight in the evening.

About four days ago, the trills stopped.  At first I was grateful for the peace and quiet, but then I started to wonder what had happened;  had one of the neighbourhood cats caught the bird?  Had it been in a fight with the vicious magpies that also occasionally haunt this neck of the woods?  I looked around outside;  the bird appeared to have vanished entirely.  No trace of it at all, until today.

Today, as I was coming into the house I heard the familiar squawk, but it was far-off.  After looking around, I finally spotted the bird;  it was up on the power lines, trilling as loudly and continuously as ever, and staring at me.  For some reason, it had left my gutters, and now seems to be generally be staying up on the raised power lines (too far away to be heard from inside the house).

When I went back out to my car a few minutes later, I discovered that a bird had done its business on top of it.  I know which bird I suspect.

I wonder whether I’ve done something to offend that bird.