Pat,

There's a pretty good chance the Robins are seeing their own reflections, even in the shaded windows, and mistaking them for interlopers. Since nesting time is upon us, the birds are starting to get territorial. They may be trying to chase away the "other" Robin.
Any other ideas?

-Rolan

"Patrick McMillan (MACBU)" <patmcmil at microsoft.com> wrote:
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) } 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

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Rolan Nelson
Fircrest, WA
rnbuffle at yahoo.com

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