How To Stop A Robin From Pecking At Your Window

My wife and I have been battling robins at our rural Salem, Oregon home for many years. Nearly every spring some crazed robin volition obsessively peck at our chamber windows, which are conveniently (for the bird) located next to a large oak tree.

The robin will sit on a branch, seemingly getting more and more irritated at another robin which has the gall to invade his territory during mating flavor. Of course, the other robin is his reflection in the glass, which makes it pretty damn difficult to chase the intruder away.

Dorsum in 2003, I wrote about my frustrations with a bird who kept attacking my Volvo's mirrors and windshield. I unaffectionately called him Bastard Robin. Titling the post "Further evidence of male idiocy," at that time I causeless that only guy robins engaged in this sort of behavior.

I'm no expert on bird behavior, but I believe these are the basic facts. Bastard Robin wants to father some offspring. It isn't enough that he spiral some sweet young female person robin. In his delusional, and seemingly infinitesimal, robin encephalon, he is determined to be the only male in the whole wide earth screwing a sweet immature female robin, so all the baby robins everywhere volition comport on the genetic heritage of Bastard Robin.

Hence, his singleminded decision to rid the neighborhood of other male person robins. Now that makes some sense, I gauge. But now the male idiocy kicks in, stimulated by what a character on Marry McBeal was fond of calling the human being's "dumb stick."

However, when I went to our local bird store a few days agone to get some communication about how to deal with this year's extra-obsessed robin, the knowledgeable possessor told me that female person robins also are territorial and engage in compulsive window/glass pecking behavior.

Such is borne out past the all-time web site advice I could find about how to finish robins from doing this. "Preventing Window Strikes" explains why birds do this and the various options that tin can be used to deter them.

(Aside from shooting them -- an idea that I have to admit did pass through my mind later the robin started waking usa retirees up at six:thirty am, way before our usual rising-and-shine time; but we're kind-hearted vegetarians who believe in a alive and allow live arroyo to animals unless they're truly subversive.)

I didn't detect that web site until after my wife and I tried several approaches mentioned on it that we idea upwardly on our own. Here's what didn't work for the states, and what finally did.

Some years, lowering our sleeping accommodation window shades deters territorial robins. This year, it didn't. Robin Version 2011 kept pecking at his reflection whether the shades were upwards or downward. So my wife got a plastic owl at our local Fred Meyer store.

The owl had essentially zero outcome on the robin. Information technology didn't take long earlier I saw the robin pecking correct at the owl. So this is when I went to Wild Birds Unlimited for some sparkly, dangling, metallic ribbon stuff.

I climbed on the roof and tacked 20 5-foot lengths well-nigh every eight inches to a axle that ran above our chamber windows. Problem was, the wind would blow the streamers every which manner, including upwardly onto the roof and nether shingles. The ribbons also would get tangled around each other.

But even when they were hanging down properly, the robin began to ignore them after a brief "what the hell is that?" acclimation menstruum from his perch in the oak tree. Time for another approach.

I dug up some old work clothes and fabricated a scarecrow that, I felt, looked a lot like me. Bungee cords attached the scarecrow to a ladder, raising information technology to window level. My crowning bear upon -- which I was sure would do the robin-scaring play a trick on -- was a head shot of a bird's worst nightmare.

But I was dismayed to find that this fearsome open-jawed cat photo didn't practice the trick, not even combined with a bunch of the metal ribbons that I draped on the scarecrow and the window frame. Information technology didn't take long earlier the robin was darting correct past the scarecrow and heading for his reflection once again.

Dorsum to the drawing board.

Fortunately, while I was working on the scarecrow my wife was on another shopping trip to Fred Meyer. This time she brought home some various-sized plastic netting for keeping birds off of vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and such. The 14' X 14' packet turned out to be merely right to cover our chamber windows.

On a windy, rainy afternoon I climbed support on the roof and managed to get one side of the netting attached to the eaves above our windows, draping the plastic mesh over nails that I pounded in every foot. So I secured the other cease of the fourteen' by 14' square to the siding under and around our windows, using more nails.

The netting is hard to meet after it was stretched out. Here's what it looked similar when still clumped together to some extent.

Looking through our bedroom windows now, the netting is barely visible. This photograph was taken when the wind was blowing one of the scarecrow ribbons out to the side (I left the scarecrow up, even though information technology's robin-scaring value is minimal at all-time). The netting shows up against the ribbon, merely otherwise is near invisible.

Because the eaves of our house extend out 18 inches or so from the siding, in most places the stretched-out netting is at to the lowest degree several inches from the windows, even though the bottom of it is attached to the side of our firm.

The robin has fluttered at the netting several times, merely hasn't been able to achieve the window. Nosotros were worried that information technology might get caught in the netting. Information technology doesn't expect like this will happen, since the bird notices the netting and avoids it. While information technology was kind of a pain to attach to the eave of our house, the angle this created meant we didn't need to make a frame that would proceed the netting away from the windows.

This solution looks like information technology'll last. Yesterday the robin spent quite a fleck of time perched on the oak tree, looking depressed -- like he'due south lost his purpose in life.

(Proffer to robin: turn your attention to nesting and chick-feeding; get a sensitive stay-at-dwelling robin dad instead of obsessing over your macho need to chase away male competition. Assuming y'all're a "he.")

Today I noticed that some other robin, manifestly the commencement one'south mate, had joined in with some half-hearted window pecking on glass doors on some other side of the house. Later I walked by that area and saw that a robin was sitting, dazed, on a stepping stone.

It's eyes were airtight, but information technology was upright. Before long the other robin showed upward, making for a poignant moment. The mate hopped effectually close to the dazed/asleep robin, as if it was trying to get its companion moving.

Must have worked.

The side by side time I walked by both of the robins were gone. Looking upwardly, I saw one was back in the oak tree, staring at the netting. I was surprised by how happy I was that both were alive. Even though I couldn't stand the window pecking, seeing the mazed robin hurt (probably by bashing its head into glass) got me all sentimental.

These birds are just doing what comes naturally to them. While I imagine that they're out to drive my wife and I crazy with their window pecking, the rational side of me knows this isn't truthful.

They're just acting like robins. And nosotros're acting like humans. Fortunately, for the moment we've managed to outsmart them, Homo sapiens that we are.

Source: https://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2011/04/how-we-stopped-a-robins-pecking-at-window-glass.html

Posted by: lewisyiall1981.blogspot.com

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