The Calm Before the Storm

Caught sight of this robin mom at a local conservatory while some friends and I were taking in the beauty of the summer flower show.

This lovely lady was non-plussed to have her picture taken, and basically refused to even acknowledge the visitors who one-by-one spotted her sitting in a bird feeder off the path.

The robin was so still that we had to ask ourselves if she was real, but realized pretty quickly that she was.

Just sitting around, taking care of her eggs, resting a little before the chaos begins when her baby birds break through their eggs and demand to be fed.

Rest, mama, rest.

Mystery Solved: Why Robins Want in House

Since a particular robin is still trying to smash his way into our house through a window (see blog below), I decided to do a ltitle research. It turns out that robins (and cardinals) are very territorial and when they see their reflection in a window, they try to engage with the "other" bird to get him out of the way.

Since the window pecking began a couple of weeks ago, we had been trying to stop the bird from crashing at the window by placing stuffed cats in his line of sight, placing some garden statuary in his path (a bunny and St. Francis) and propping a folded up lawn chair in his way.

No luck. Yesterday he started pecking at a different window in the dining room. He would perch on the rhodedendron outside the window and then make a kamikaze move directly into the glass. I shook the blinds at him a couple of times but to no avail.

I'm not sure how long this will go on. You would think the bird would have figured out his task is useless by this point, but I am not sure that is going to happen. Being a bit on the stubborn side myself, I realize this could go on till the birds fly south in the fall. Hoping the windows hold up!

Robins at the Door

I had been hearing strange knocking sounds in the house for days. When I finally snuck around the house to learn the source, I discovered that a robin was pecking at our basement window, over and over and over again.

Hmmm. Did he want to come in and see what was on TV or did he think that the stuffed Pittsburgh Pirate Parrots sitting in the window well were long-lost relatives?

Then last night we found TWO robins pecking away at the patio door in the basement. Guess when a window doesn't open, maybe a door will?

It's hard to figure out a bird's intention, but this is a little odd, don't you think?