This means war

Brian Wilson

Flutter, flutter, THUNK, THUNK.

My home is once again, under attack. The attacker in this case is a large male robin that treats my backyard as his own private bachelor pad. He defends this solitary turf aggressively against all threats both real and imagined.

According to bird experts, robins are among the more territorial of common bird species.

Unfortunately, birds are notoriously not very bright and the robin who has claimed my backyard as his own is far from being a stellar example of his species.

The robin, who I have mentally started calling Robbie after a particularly annoying former high school classmate, spends a good portion of each day attacking my windows. The behavior, according to the people who study such things, is because Robbie the Robin sees the reflection in the glass as rival robin and sends Robbie into a rage.

I have to believe that whatever limited mental capacity Robbie the Robin had to begin with, has got to have been diminished by the hundred or so times a day he crashes into the windows.

This is not the first year that Robbie has attacked our home. His renewed attacks have become the sure-fire harbinger of spring, more reliable than any rodents foretelling the weather with shadows or lack of it.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, American robins typically only live for about two years. However, they have been observed living up to 14 years. I don’t know about you, but that seems like quite a suspiciously large range of time. Like the two grad students doing the project got bored and just started using a Magic 8-Ball to guess.

In the past I have rested secure that it was highly unlikely that a bird that tops out at 11 inches in length and 2.7 ounces in weight could do much lasting damage to my home. It would be like me getting annoyed at Timms Hill and spending my days going up and kicking a boulder.

What is different is that a few months ago my wife, Kim, hurt her rotator cuff after falling at work. Since laying down is uncomfortable for her, she has been spending most nights sleeping in the recliner that, you guessed it, is located next to the back windows and Robbie gets up before the crack of dawn to do battle with his imagined foes causing Kim to get woken up and progressively grumpier about the whole situation.

A wise man once said “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Remedying the bird attacks has become my problem to deal with before Kim risks local, state and federal charges to implement her own version of a permanent solution.

For the record, robins (as well as cedar waxwings) are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act and can be taken only with a federal migratory bird depredation permit.

So, while we entertain the fantasy of using a bazooka to reduce Robbie to a pile of smoking feather fragments, the reality is that we need to find a nonviolent solution.

Phase 1 has been the purchase of window clings with a stained glass window pattern, which, according to the manufacturer, will prevent the bird from seeing his reflection.

Phase 2 will be hanging strands of fishing line from the frame of the back windows, which according the Youtube video I saw does something to mess with the bird’s brains and stops the attacks.

If these phases don’t do the trick, I may need to invest in wind chimes, which I am told (again by wind chime manufacturers) will spook away Robbie. I have even considered hanging a mirrored box away from the house to give him something else to focus his attacks on instead of my windows or planting my entire backyard in catnip in the hopes of luring some feline predators to handle the problem for me.

If all else fails, we will need to go into stealth mode and cover the windows entirely to prevent any sort of reflection from being seen.

I don’t really hold out much hope for any of these remedies to work and anticipate that it will be ultimately a waiting game until Robbie meets a nice female robin and settles down to raise the next generation of nuisances.