A robin has been perched on the railing of my balcony for at least an hour this evening. Every couple minutes or so he up and flings himself at the glass door, and slams himself into it like a punk rock fan or something, with an audible impact. He squeaks when he hits (I guess it must hurt). Then returns to his perch, only to repeat it a little later, over and over.
Has something gone haywire in his little bird brain? Or has the angle of the sun low in the west made his own reflection in the glass seem like a rival male? I mean, WTF? I don’t want him hurting himself over nothing.
As the weather warms up, green leaves and shoots appear, the hormone levels in the daffy little feather dough-heads rise. They’ll attack reflective lamp-posts, car windows, bald heads, or passing fire trucks. Must show off for the females, you know.
There’s also a rise in skateboarding accidents at local hospitals
Thanks for the tip, Noelq! I taped cardboard up there. He played mosh pit with the glass one more time, then finally left. I think the sun got so low that it wasn’t making the reflection the same way.
He may be deterred by a picture of a really huge, ugly, menacing bird coming straight at him. If he still attacks it, he as no one to blame but himself.
Yes. Although it was a wide area of glass that I didn’t have enough cardboard to cover it all. Actually, I think the last one I posted about was a different robin. His plumage was darker. They’ve all gone mad with springtime. Finally the sun has gone down and put a stop to this madness!
Last year a junco spent all day for days on end fighting his reflection in one of my windows. It was the second year in a row for him. I think it went on for weeks or maybe it just seemed like it. Very annoying noise and the window got all dirty with bird grease (or something).
I’ve had Cardinals attacking my windows for about three years now. Surprisingly it’s a female this year. She should be building a nest, not attacking my windows.
“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff -and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
And from the inside, too, I’d duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
Uncurtaining the night, I’d let dark glass
Hang all the furniture above the grass…
A sparrow was doing this to one of my windows last year. I took down the suncatcher I had there, which had a picture of a chickadee on it. Problem solved.
