As I write this, a robin is pecking at my bathroom window. He’s been at it, off and on, since before 5 a.m. this morning.
And as irritating as that is, he has been pecking at my window every morning at dawn’s first blush since early May — more than two months now.
I have tried everything I know to stop him. Post-it notes on the glass. Even pictures of cats and wolves.
Nothing has deterred him or slowed him down. Each morning I crawl out of bed, rattle the drapes to shoo him off, and he’s back pecking away before my head hits the pillow again.
I’m pretty sure it’s his own reflection that he’s attacking, so I trimmed the tree just outside that window, clipping off the branches that would offer him a perch for the best view of himself. But that didn’t work. Now he just sits on a lower branch and leaps up to peck the same beak-smeared spot over and over.
And over.
You would think that a bird would learn over time that it’s only his own reflection that he’s bonking his beak at day after day, right? After all, that guy in the glass looks exactly like him. If nothing else, even if it is a handsome rival bird he’s matching pecks with, you would think he’d learn that the other guy is exactly as tough and ornery as he is. Morning after morning, week after week, month after month, that guy in the window never backs down.
So maybe he already knows that the other bird is just an image, but he still embraces the illusion that he’s a fearless, battle-hardened warrior trading blows with a foe that can’t really hurt him.
Could it be that kind of simple stubborn arrogance that drives him to peck the window incessantly? Even if he knows that it’s just an illusion, and that he’s started a meaningless war against a non-existent threat, is he stuck now with no exit strategy that would allow him to retain some shred of dignity? Is that what drives him day after day to wage his senseless war with himself?
Whatever his bird-brained reasons, I want him to go away and leave me alone.
I even tried taping a patch of window screen over the glass, hoping it would cloud his mirror image enough to make him stop. Or at least send him to peck elsewhere. If he leaves my window alone and decides to do battle against that cocky puffed-up robin sneering at him from the neighbor’s reflective window, oh well. Call me a bad neighbor, but a 5-a.m. wake-up call month after month can drive a guy to some pretty uncivil action.
But no, the robin couldn’t be deterred that easily. He simply dug his claws into the screen and pecked away until the tape gave way and the screening fell to the ground. More unfettered pecking ensued, day after day.
It goes on still, because I have run out of ideas. At least, I’m out of ideas that I can live with afterwards.
I have considered slathering the glass with Bon Ami, that whitish-pinkish smeary stuff that some folks use to “flock” their windows with snowflakes and frost at Christmas time. But if I painted the inside of the windows, they would still reflect like a mirror on the outside surface, so that wouldn’t help. And if I painted the outside of the windows, it would run down the siding when it rains, flocking the east side of my house.
So, no thanks. I’ve given the neighbors enough quirky goings-on at the Old Kerth House to fuel rumors.
I suppose if I lived in a different time and in a different place, I might have solved the problem in a simpler, more direct way. After all, I remember poring over Red Ryder BB Gun ads plastered over the back of Boy’s Life Magazines — ads that extolled the joys of “plinking” at crows and other “varmints,” even if they were minding their own business far from your pre-dawn bathroom window.
But no, we live in a kinder, gentler time and place today, and I guess I’m glad for it. I don’t want to hurt or kill that little birdbrain. I just want him to go away and stop ruining my mornings.
And so that pesky pre-dawn pane-pecker will go unplinked by me. And the witless pecking will go on until he decides to stop doing it.
Because I’m at my wit’s end.
At least that’s my attitude on the subject for now, after just two months of early morning wake-up calls. It’ll be hard, but I’ll wait him out. Because a robin can’t keep pecking a window forever, right? Even the peskiest of pecky robins has to move on to other business eventually, right?
Right?
But hey, if Thanksgiving rolls around almost five months from now and a sleep-deprived guy stops by your house to borrow a half-cup of stuffing mix, don’t ask him where he got the tiniest turkey carcass you ever saw.
TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com
