Bird Brains
By Jessica Shepherd
A pair of robins, hell-bent on defending their nesting territory, throw themselves against our bedroom window. They sit by turns on the slim branch of alders growing near the house while the window mirrors the sky, the alders and spruce, and their own angry reflections. Their soft bones and feathers bounce off the window again. And again. Again, and again.
All afternoon, they keep up the effort to drive away imaginary competitors. Hal prints out hawk silhouettes and tapes them to the glass. When that has no effect, he nails a blanket across the window, casting our bedroom into a twilight pall. But it makes no difference to the robins, fluttering and crunching against the window. I think of the eggs she carries in her belly and hope these soft collisions don’t damage them. I worry about the energy they’re expending when they should be out gathering grubs and building a nest. Knowing it’s not tall enough, I set up a ladder and hold it while Hal climbs up with a piece of opaque plastic and a staple gun. The ladder seems too insubstantial, and we both decide it’s foolish to risk his life to save theirs.
They’re still at it when we don earplugs and attempt sleep, only to abandon our bedroom for the too-soft bed in our little trailer. One day stretches into two. Still, they flap and knock against the glass. I stand outside, seeing how the window reflects the sky as if you could simply fly through. I try to reason with the birds, but my voice does nothing to appease them. If anything, they appear more frantic. Hal and I spend a second night in the trailer while the assault continues.
This east-facing side of the house has long been a favorite spot for nesting robins. They used to nest on the top of the dryer vent, next to the window, but the location was exposed, and most years, Magpies snatched the naked chicks to feed their own nestlings amid desperate cries from the Robin parents. When the dryer gave up the ghost, we switched to hanging our clothes outside in the sun-sweet air, and removed the vent, nailing a board over the hole.
The robins then took to nesting atop one of the jutting ends of our log house, tucked up in a dark recess. This proved to be a better location in terms of Magpie mishaps. But never before had they shown any interest in their own reflections. Perhaps the increased cloud cover this spring dulls the light and makes the window into a looking glass. Or maybe this is a new pair - young and inexperienced in the ways of windows. Who can say what goes through their bird brains?
I think about the number of birds that die from window strikes every year (600 million), second only to predation by domestic cats (a staggering 2 billion). Songbird populations are in steep decline, and while the American Robin, found in every state in the US, has a stable population, I can’t help but feel protective toward this pair. In some sense, they are “our” robins by virtue of the landscape we share with them. We surely bear some responsibility for their welfare.
Meanwhile, other animals are making the most of the long days and rapidly greening landscape. Overhead, as I work in the garden, Sandhill Cranes call, their reedy voices carrying long distances. I look up and see a trio, legs dangling. And in the same air space, a pair of mature eagles, white heads and tails resplendent in the sunlight, spiral and chitter to one another.
In town, I hear reports of moose twins, hours old, and scan the open fields on my drive home in hopes of seeing newborns on spidery legs. The next morning, Hal walks the dogs on a trail above the house and hears our local cow moose amid the alders, likely the one who destroyed the apple trees this winter, grunting over and over as labor bares down on her.
A third day goes by. The window, dotted with Robin excrement, is quiet. The male, his red breast proud, sings from an adjacent spruce tree. Curious, we round the corner of the house to have a peek. The female darts furtively from the nest, and we retreat, hoping for the best.
Back in our own bed that night we sleep peacefully until sunrise when the fragile thump of robins at the window wakes us. Their futile aggression is less ardent, more bluster. Later, we watch them gather huge mouthfuls of grass for their nest. It seems they have learned to live with their shadow selves.
Such fun!!!