Hi,



This is the first time I've posted to this group. I've been witnessing
some odd Robin behavior around our house that I'm desperate to get some
insight into.



We live in a North Seattle neighborhood with lots of trees and bushes.
>From most parts of the house, all you can see is green. So I'm assuming
there's no shortage of good nest sites. This is our third spring in the
house. The house has lots of big windows and has two floors - a main
floor and a basement. This year, for the first time since we've been in
this house, we are witnessing the strangest Robin behavior. For the last
several weeks, every day, at any hour between sun up and sundown one or
more Robins (I think it's more than one, but have never actually seen
two doing this at the same time) perch on a branch just outside any of
six or seven windows around the house and then fly into the window!
Crash. Then they perch back on the branch, rest for a second, and try
again! And again, and again off and on throughout the day.



I could understand if they did this once or twice, or maybe dozens of
times for one day at one window. But they repeat this futile enterprise
dozens of times (probably more) *each day*! The walls beneath some of
the windows are now soiled with many days worth of droppings, even
though there's no ledge of any sort for the birds to perch on, which
indicates that they're probably repeating this exercise a lot. There's
nothing obvious in any of the rooms the Robins are trying to get into
that seems like it would attract them. One of their target windows is on
the garage. Some are dark basement rooms with no greenery of any kind
inside or outside.



Is this behavior normal springtime behavior and I've just been missing
it all these years? Are our local Robins going nuts? If no one knows
(which I'm guessing is the case since this kind of thing is generally
unknowable unless you speak Robin), does anyone have or has anyone heard
of any theories about this? I'm dying to know what's going on here.



Oh, and although I would love to somehow avert this annoying behavior, I
have my doubts that there's anything I can really do. Several days we've
put down the shades in the house, only to listen as the Robins continued
to crash repeatedly into those same windows throughout the day!



Thanks,



Pat McMillan

Seattle

patmcmil at microsoft.com