Saturday, April 05, 2008

The Angry Robin

You know how sometimes people get really angry or worked-up about something, to the point of obsession? Like when someone just goes off on a one-person crusade on some little (or big) issue, to the point of camping out in Lafayette Park to point a sign at the White House, or writing letters to every member of Congress about some obscure issue. (Or they blog about silly little things?)

Maybe birds are like people that way.


We seem to have an angry robin on our hands. For the past three days, this little robin has been attacking our house, repeatedly flitting at and banging into two of our windows. When not attacking, he (she?) sits on a branch a few feet away, glaring at us.


What did we do? Is it our cat, who certainly finds this robin's behavior provacative. The other morning we heard a loud crash downstairs, finding that the cat had gotten her claws caught in a screen above the stove and pulled it down on top of her.


Or did we put our house where the robin planned to build a nest? Did we chop down her favorite bush, did the boys accidentally break one of her eggs while striking soccer balls in the back yard, did our Verizon Fios installer do something objectionalbe? We don't know.


We wonder, will some other birds intervene for the robin's own good? Will they urge this robin to "give it up" or "move on" or "let it go and open a new chapter in your life?" Worse yet, will other robins have to take this little fellow off to the bird equivalent of a mental hospital?


For the record, we deny any wrongdoing. In fact, we feel harassed, stalked. The robin should leave us alone. Especially at 6:30 a.m. on a weekend!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The robin is seeing its own reflection in your window and thinks it's another robin. This is the time of year (breeding season) when most birds are territorial and will fight off intruders. The robin is simply protecting its eggs/young from what it thinks is danger.

X Curmudgeon said...

Guess that's why they call them birdbrains.