[cowpony]

I guess it's officially spring in my yard. Every year a pair of robins nest in a tree growing outside my kitchen window. I became aware of their return when I became aware of a repeated thonk coming from the kitchen. At first I thought it was my spouse doing some project. Then I realized my spouse was elsewhere in the house. The thonk noise was the male robin attacking his reflection in the glass.

I turned on the kitchen light, so he could see me and all the stuff sitting on the kitchen window sill. Normally the light would have startled the previous robins into flying away. This particular robin just crouched on his branch, continuing to glare at the window. I then hung a Christmas ornament from the screen to break up the view. The change seemed to work.

This morning, however, I woke up at 6 AM to thonk.

Sigh.

 

[cowpony]

Mr. I've-lost-my-mind-to-hormones

 

[Mufar42]

I am familiar with the think. I have a rather large window arch, above my "normal" windows in our living room. Every morning a bird comes and thinks on it. I really can't get up there so..it goes on until he decides to quit. LOL

 

[Dianaleez]

I guess it's officially spring in my yard. Every year a pair of robins nest in a tree growing outside my kitchen window. I became aware of their return when I became aware of a repeated thonk coming from the kitchen. At first I thought it was my spouse doing some project. Then I realized my spouse was elsewhere in the house. The thonk noise was the male robin attacking his reflection in the glass.

I turned on the kitchen light, so he could see me and all the stuff sitting on the kitchen window sill. Normally the light would have startled the previous robins into flying away. This particular robin just crouched on his branch, continuing to glare at the window. I then hung a Christmas ornament from the screen to break up the view. The change seemed to work.

This morning, however, I woke up at 6 AM to thonk.

Sigh.

Mrs Robin chose him for beauty - not brains!

 

[cowpony]

Mrs Robin chose him for beauty - not brains!

Apparently, LOL!

 

[lily cd re]

Ahh, spring! I've never had that with a robin, but I have had a few years where we had unmated male mockingbirds near our yard. They sing all night long in great hope someone is listening. They are very loud and disturb sleep. We also had a mockingbird nest in the far corner of the back yard. Since they are so territorial I worried that he would dive bomb the dogs. Somehow that never happened. I guess the dogs decided to give wide passage. We always have cardinals and song sparrows nest in our yard and northern orioles and red bellied woodpeckers high up in trees that we can see from the yard. We also have a bald eagle nest about 5 miles away from us. The eaglets at various Long Island nests have just started hatching this week. Spring events provide hope that the rest of the world is still operating normally.

 

[cowpony]

Ah, mockingbirds. When I was a teenager we had one that learned to imitate the sound of my dad's digital alarm clock. We would hear be-be-be-beep be-be-be-beep starting at 4 AM and continuing through out the day. My poor dad! I've never had mockingbirds at my current house; I think the landscaping is not to their liking.

The only other time I've had a bird attack a window with this tenacity was when we had a young tom turkey attempting to set up a territory. He disappeared later that summer, and we haven't had any other turkeys in the yard since we installed dog fencing. Tom turkeys are definitely close to the top of the list when it comes to stupidly aggressive local birds. Turkeys, geese, and red-tails are the only local birds that I worry about attacking me, and even the geese and red-tails don't usually bother unless young are involved. Turkeys just lose their minds.

 

[PeggyTheParti]

Can't help but take the title of this thread a little personally. 😂 (My name's Robin.)

 

[cowpony]

Can't help but take the title of this thread a little personally. 😂 (My name's Robin.)

A 16th Century song about robins and love, given a jazz treatment by Ian King. (The Yorkshire Ian King who moved to Tuscany, not the UK reporter, nor the technology reporter, nor the Aussie, nor any other Ian King who will turn up in a Google search...)

 

[cowpony]

Birds setting up housekeeping in my neighborhood now include a pair of red tailed hawks. Thankfully they are in my neighbors yard, so I shouldn't need to worry about being dive bombed by territorial raptors. Still, red-tails are third on my list of annoyingly loud outdoor birds; seagulls and peacocks are even more noisy. I expect we'll be listening to young hawks screaming for mom & dad right up through September.

 

[Dianaleez]

Our bluebirds have fledged and the swallows have claimed the other side of the duplex.

 

[lily cd re]

Starting yesterday morning we now have a red bellied woodpecker drilling on the chimney cap off and on starting pretty early in the morning. Silly bird, they have a number of trees they have used during the time we have lived here and I don't know why there is this sudden interest in the chimney. While we out in the yard during the afternoon we had blue jays dashing all around us.

 

[lciano]

I guess it's officially spring in my yard. Every year a pair of robins nest in a tree growing outside my kitchen window. I became aware of their return when I became aware of a repeated thonk coming from the kitchen. At first I thought it was my spouse doing some project. Then I realized my spouse was elsewhere in the house. The thonk noise was the male robin attacking his reflection in the glass.

I turned on the kitchen light, so he could see me and all the stuff sitting on the kitchen window sill. Normally the light would have startled the previous robins into flying away. This particular robin just crouched on his branch, continuing to glare at the window. I then hung a Christmas ornament from the screen to break up the view. The change seemed to work.

This morning, however, I woke up at 6 AM to thonk.

Sigh.

A friend of mine that lives in Texas had this same problem last spring! She couldn't make the bird understand that he/she shouldn't be doing that!! 😃🐦

 

[kontiki]

Hopefully the baby birds do not inherit his intelligence!

 

[cowpony]

Hopefully the baby birds do not inherit his intelligence!

Alas, kontiki, I met one of the youngsters this afternoon. He seems to take after dad. I accidentally tossed a tennis ball into a pile of brush trimmings. (I have horrible aim.) Pogo and Galen dove into the pile. A not quite fledged robin jumped out of the pile, shrieking. Apparently he had tried to leave home and discovered after the fact that he lacked the necessary aviation skills. Since he was not a tennis ball both dogs ignored him, amazingly, until I started chasing him myself. Then Pogo helped me corner him. After I got him I attempted to set him safely in a buddleia bush. He was unable to cling to the branches and slowly slid to the ground.

At that point mom and dad robin got pretty upset and threatened to dive bomb us. I moved the dogs inside and transferred the fledgling to a stone bench near the pile where we found him. He can duck into a holly bush from there.

 

[kontiki]

Ohhhh Cowpony, I too am a terrible aim. So sweet to hear your rescue attempts for the baby bird. I do hope it will be ok.

One time I was walking in the woods and a baby bird fell out of the nest. I saw it shivering on the ground. I stopped and squatted down and put my hand out palm up in from of it. It actually stepped up on my hand and squatted down to warm itself in my palm. So I gently put my other hand over it and it stopped shivering and took a nap! When it wakened about 1/2 hour later it raised it's head, did a little poop off of the side of my hand, and looked much perkier. I then saw a worm moving in the dirt, so I ruffled the dirt to bring it to the top of the soil. The little bird then jumped off my hand and started pulling on the worm and eating it! I finally left after about an hour when it seemed strong and ok, hoping the parents would take over.

The man I was hiking with had gotten quite ready to go by then Probably a good thing or I might not have left, and I do not know how to be a bird parent!

It actually felt like almost a spiritual experience......
I have had other awesome bird experiences also ... twice held hummingbirds ,............ etc.

 

[Dianaleez]

Normie caught a bird in our backyard on Sunday afternoon. Poodles are so quick!

There was a lot of screaming (from the parent bird and me); finally, after a lot of chasing from me, a poached chicken bribe convinced Normie to let it go.

It's no longer in the yard so we assume that all is well in Birdland.