I haven’t been able to get a picture of him on my slow cell phone – he’s a fast-fluttering little guy – but he’s a robin like this.
Actually, there’s a whole family (horde? flock?) of them, and they have apparently moved into/on our house. It started at roughly the same time that Lucas came home from surgery. This one robin kept slamming head-first into our front door. I was worried that the little bugger would crack his skull open on our doorstep, but then he started to spend more time sitting on the door handle. He just perched right there and looked in.
Then, he started tapping on the glass. He sat on the handle and pecked at the door. Tap, tap, tap.
It would’ve been funny, I guess, if it didn’t get the dogs so riled up. So, before Lucas came home and while Cooper was at doggy daycare, I took action:
Action.
Emmett and Newt parked themselves in front of the storm door, and the bird disappeared.
Then, we brought Lucas home. Fluid pooled around his incision, so he was on strict exercise restriction. I couldn’t leave the door open because Cooper would flip out, and we needed to keep Lucas still. Yet, our robin friend came back, and the bird kept at it. Tap, tap, tap.
Launching out of bed to bark his face off at a robin pecking at our front door was not an approved activity for Lucas.
Over the course of the next few days, I printed out peregrine falcon cutouts from the EPA site. At this point, another robin had started flying into our back window for hours at a time every morning. So, we stuck cutouts in the door and in the back window.
Surely – surely! – the impression of predators would stop this attack.
Nope. In both the side and the front, the robins started attacking the cutouts.
Plan B.
I moved Newt’s cat tree in front of the door.
It worked-ish. She sure liked being up there, but she wouldn’t stay all day. She’d wander off to do Cat Things, and our robin buddy would be back tap, tap, tapping at the glass as soon as she disappeared.
To say I was “annoyed” is like saying the ocean is kind of big.
The scene: Tap, tap, tap. Cooper launches up to bark. Lucas launches up to back up Cooper. I launch up to grab Lucas’ harness and try to settle him down. I sit back at my computer to start working again, and…
Tap, tap, tap.
Meanwhile, another robin showed up in our yard. There were several close calls when Coop would run out, and the little guy would be slow to flutter away. Just what we need. Attacks from all sides. Is my eye twitching?
John was looking out the window. “I think something’s wrong with that bird.”
“You mean other than bashing his face into our house all day long?”
“His leg is broken.”
We watched the little guy hop along the fence line, and sure enough, his little right leg is broken. He holds it tucked under him but doesn’t use it. He’s slower than the others, but he can still viciously attack our back window with the same force as the rest of them. In a weird way, I’m happy about that.
This morning, he was hanging by the screen by his one good leg, flapping his wings a bit to stay balanced, but he was doing it.
Sure, it’s annoying me to no end. But, at the same time, I can’t help but feel like this little guy showed up to… what? teach me something? tolerance? patience? Who knows. Either way, in an act of solidarity, I’m putting out a basket of Lucas’ fur because I’m sure this little guy (or gal – I can’t tell) could use a little boost toward collecting nest material. And, sure, it’s going to annoy me even more when all their little nests are built around the porch, and we can’t go in and out our front door without being attacked by all the mamas, but… I suppose that’s what garages are for.
OMG, you are now befriending the enemy! I love birds, but I also witnessed this guy at your house and the commotion he is causing. LOL. Well good for you guys to help him with a next. Maybe John has some yarn scraps you could put out too.
You might read up on Spirit Animals if you have time. Native Americans feel that when animals show unusual activity around you it means something. It sure sounds like the robins are planning on hanging out with you for a while 🙂
As a know-it-all about robins (ha ha ha), I wanted to say I have never had a robin be aggressive toward me even when a nest was involved. They usually just fly away. It is recommended to put vinyl clings and/or stickers on your windows to stop them from flying into windows. Also note that robins don’t eat at bird feeders. If you garden you can leave them worms. A robin always followed my husband as he tilled the soil for the garden every year. Good luck on your new resident. I am only dealing with reactions to mail delivery, squirrels, chipmunks, and some other neighborhood dogs, mind you not all neighborhood dogs. I would love to hear if your encounters escalate though.
I love that the broken-legged-bird showed up to commiserate with the now-one-less-leg-dog. If only that bird was offering empathy, instead of misery! i know there are a lot of bird lovers out there, I am not one of them. Birds terrify me and they know they terrify me as the single me out in Home Depot and dive bomb me.
S/he’s been hanging out at our house, too. He loves to fly into and then hang onto the window screen in our back hallway. But now I feel bad about being annoyed by him!
Birds are so strange! I so understand your frustration at this unwanted behavior. I have had, and continue to have, a problem with a robin attacking my CAR in the same way! This happened once before and we figured a way to prevent the behavior. Maybe this will help you, too.
Birds see their own reflection in glass and think it’s another bird encroaching on “their” territory.
I don’t know what determines how territory is claimed, maybe its just a matter of pecking order.:) lol
The trick is to prevent them from getting close wnough to “attack” the enemy bird that they see in the glass.
For example, on my car, I had to cover the wiper blade on the back with a plastic grocery bag so he had no place to perch and peck. That worked fine. However, then he moved on to both side mirrors!
I covered the outside mirrors with plastic bags and no more enemy birds to attack! This is still a mystery to me why the bird, and it was only this ONE bird, wasn’t interested in the windshield, where he could have just easily walked across the whole front of the car pecking; but he never showed any interest in the front or passenger windows at all. ~~shrugs~~ Like I said; birds are so wierd!
This happened about 4 years ago for one spring only, and now he, or another crazy relative, is back. This is clearly OCD behavior, and they WILL just keep it up to the neglect of every other function, even looking for food, in an effort to keep their nest protected, even though, in my case, we could not determine where the nest was, except to see that it was NOT in eye-shot of my car!
In YOUR case, the easiest thing you can do is to make whatever area that the bird has claimed inhospitible for him to stand on or to see his reflection.
Plastic bags work very well for this, or perhaps construction paper, waxpaper, newspaper, or a poster? Even fabric, or egg cartons, petfood bags. I know that this is not an ideal LOOK for your front door or windows, but it DOES work. Iif you tape up something that feels icky or instable to him, that is opaque as well, he’ll forget about YOUR house and find someplace ELSE to guard.
In any case, you’ll still be able to USE your door while he is getting desensitized to YOUR glass.
This might take 2 weeks, but it’s way better than MONTHS of this!
My car looked like it was paint-balled everyday until I figured out how to stop my bird.
Then there were the times I forgot to remove the plastic bags BEFORE driving… 😉
Hope this helps you! Sending continuing good wishes for Lucas’ recovery.
We had troubles with a robin one year during mating season. Seams he was gonna mate with our house or die trying!
Your Pals,
Murphy & Stanley
Oh dear, birds can be so crazy sometimes! I’ve never seen this behavior from a robin, but I’ve seen it with cardinals at the kitchen window, and white throated sparrows on our garage door window. Luckily the dogs don’t notice the kitchen window thing, and they only do it occasionally. I believe it is a territorial thing, so they are probably claiming your porch.
The robins do insist on building nests underneath our deck every year though, right in a high traffic area where the dogs go in and out. You would think they’d want to do that someplace quieter!
Oh, and I won’t tell you about the year they built one in the wood pile on the deck, and our cat Samantha got out….not a happy story.
Several years ago, before our neighbor got married, he had a friend living with him. One day this friend washed his car in the back yard. Well, shortly after he had finished drying the car off and had gone inside, a young male cardinal showed up and provided us with about 1/2 an hour’s worth of smiles and laughter…he would sit on top of the side-view mirror and admire himself! He’d flutter his wings, puff himself up, shake himself off, move to the door’s window frame and start all over again. A couple of times he even pecked at the mirror as though he was kissing himself. And he just kept this up, flitting from spot to spot to admire himself in the side-view mirror. By the time he flew off, my Dad, hubby, and I all had aching waistlines from laughing so much. And Mark’s car door and mirror were covered in bird droppings. Later that day, Mark washed off the droppings and half an hour later that same young, male cardinal was back admiring himself again. LMBO. 🙂
Needless to say I laughed my head off !!!!!!!!! We never know what we are going to get when we open your blog. I have never read your blog to my husband, but today was the day. He said, boy that girl always has so much going on. Your writing talent really revealed itself today. So funny, and we do need comic relief, now don’t we? Thanks for thinking about Lilly, she is ok for now. Maggie, you are such a blessing. Thanks for sharing your life with us.
Thanks for this. I have been really working at “turning the other cheek” when I am frustrated, and this is a great example. Birds driving you up a wall and you put out a basket of fur to help. Great reminder of how to be good stewards for animals, even the wild ones driving us nuts.
Your blog showed up when I was googling “robins are attacking my dog” and I love it, and your followers. The robins have a nest in the grapevines only about 5′ off the ground so whenever we go out in the back yard, they both dive-bomb us and our Akita puppy. She is a little skittish anyway so this really frightens her. One of them actually hit her in the side this morning. My thought is, why didn’t they build their nest in a less central location? These birds are so bold. I think we may need to go the pellet gun route. Next year if I see them building I will definitely discourage it. Thanks for finding some humor in the bird situation.
Two Robin’s are dive bombing my dog… who loves it as a play activity.. because there are hatchlings in a nest that they built right under our deck which he likes to smell. Well they stop when the babies leave the nest?