Birdbrain

This lovely robin has been visiting the tree outside my dining room window several times a day for the last three or four days.  How picturesque, I thought, the first time he showed up.  Then one of the cats spied him and stalked for a while.  That was pretty interesting to watch as well.

But every time he visits us, he keeps flying into the glass trying to get into the house.  It's so sad.  He's not hitting the glass very hard, so I hope it's not hurting him, but man.  You'd think he'd learn after all these days and his many, many attempts at flying through the window.

The husband thinks we should just open the window and adopt him as a pet.  Now that is birdbrained.

Update:

A quick (though temporary) solution seemed to be to put stickies on the window so that the robin would figure out it was a window.  It worked... although I did catch him looking for sticky to sticky with a confused look on his birdie face.  (What? You don't think I can read bird expressions?)

Comments

[kate]

we had a bird that kept doing that to our garage window. He only stopped when my dad put white paper behind it. It was a cardinal and he saw his reflection and kept trying to attack it or something.

[Felicia]

Poor little guy. You could try putting a couple of clings to the window. You can usually pick them up at the dollar store.

I put these on a glass storm door at my new house because my dogs & cats had never had a clear door at their level and I was afraid they would charge through it!

[bekka]

i'm always trying to snap photos of the birds visiting our feeders. lucky you!

[Janet]

Putting something like a suncatcher on the window should help. Birds can kill themselves crashing into windows.

[alison]

I read that when they see their reflection, they think it's another bird and they try to defend their territory. Of course, sometimes they just don't see the window.

[Beth S.]

A pet robin would be hard work! You'd have to spend a lot of time digging for worms in the garden. ;-)

We had a similar problem with a bluejay last year. It took up residence in a tree right outside our porch, and then spent two weeks dive-bombing the window where our cat likes to sit. ;-) The cat loved it, of course.

[AlisonH]

"Caesar's Antlers" is a lovely little novel by Brooks Hansen that takes off with the idea of a sparrow conking itself out against a window, and what happened to him, his mate, and his nestlings after that. Meantime, the post-its are a superb idea.

And I once found a bird's nest on my roof made of twigs, leaves, and pink hand-dyed wool (gee, wonder where that came from?)

[sara]

we have a lot of hornets/wasps in just about every shutter. I wish i had a little weird robin friend. Though when our 75 year old honeysuckle(read:LARGE) blossoms we get little tiny hummingbirds. DOn't blink you will miss them
On a side note, got a email from H. VERY VERY VERY sad here at the house. A bit sudden. How are you doing?
:( Sara

[Jill]

I think it must be something with robins. Last week I sat in a restaurant and watched a robin try to get in the window about 10 times before it gave up. And - the food wasn't THAT good!

[Barbara]

I wish we could put up bird feeders - whenever I've tried, the squirrels get them!