A month ago a robin began attacking our house’s rear window.  Seems it had taken to living in a fir tree that borders our back porch. Every morning, and a few times a day, it would attack the rear window.  The nutty bird would fly into the window, smashing its head/beak into the glass, fall to the porch, and then right itself and attack the window again and again!

It was like living with a kamikaze creature.  At first I figured that the bird had built a nest in the fir tree and was protecting its territory.  I also did some research and found out that the robin was probably seeing its reflection in the glass and thinking that it was an interloper intent on usurping its territory the bird was trying to drive off the intruder.

Logically I understood this as an example of nature at work.  However the bird was also spewing its droppings all over the porch as it went about its constant aerial forays. I guess it thought that if it couldn’t drive off this invader it would mark the territory with a blanket of crap!!!

I tried everything to dissuade this robin.  I put out a plastic owl. Didn’t work. I put decals on the window to obscure the reflection. Nope, the assaults continued. I even shook the tree a couple of times a day hoping the bird would pack up and move on.  Forget it.

Eventually my wife was so fed up with the glass-banging and fecal-dropping that she thought we could sedate the bird with crushed pills in bird seed.  Maybe that would calm down the creature. I was concerned about the bird eating the drugged bird seed and turning into a dope fiend.  Then we would have to start NA meetings for birds.

A week ago the attacks ceased.  The bird seemed to have disappeared…or that’s what I thought.  Then two days ago my wife called me to say that she saw the bird on our back porch with a squadron of little robins…or trainees I suppose.

I thought to myself that I would now have to deal with an entire family.  But then the transformation happened. This morning I got a call from my wife and she wanted to tell me about the birds. I held my breath and thought to myself, “Oh no, I hope she doesn’t want me to blast the tree with bird shot.”

My wife started to describe to me how she had just spent the last hour watching one of the new robins trying to fly. With a smile in her voice she described how the little bird walked out of the fir tree, stood on the edge of a branch, took off and dropped straight down to the porch!  But he or she wasn’t put off by the fall. The bird tried out another flight, fell, tried again, fell, and finally succeeded in flying three or four feet to a brick wall where it sat there looking very proud of itself.

What we thought was an avian invasion will soon become a flight-filled family gathering.

Now if only they would start singing.