A Glass Act

I was trying to work in my home office. There is always something that strives to keep me from getting any work done. The sound was coming from our living room. I decided to investigate, armed as I was with only a nearly exhausted Bic pen.

There was nothing in the room except my faithful canine companion, Towhee. Towhee was staring at the large picture window filling a good portion of one end of the room. I heard a bit of what I could only describe as fluttering and then the banging began again.

I saw the culprit. It was a robin. I wasn’t surprised. The robin, particularly the male robin, is known for its attacks upon windows. The male bird, all but dripping in testosterone, sees its image in the reflection from the glass and decides to drive the intruder from the area. It is a territory thing. The robin spots its mirrored image and thinks, “That is an unbelievingly handsome fellow, but he has to go.” Then he attacks. The image in the window proves to be a tough foe to vanquish. The robin needs to attack regularly.

This problem can usually be corrected by removing the image by soaping the window or placing cardboard or waxed paper on the outside of the glass. A feisty male bird, feeling his oats and suffering from what my wife calls “a guy thing,” will move to another window. I have even seen birds fight with an exterior mirror or a baby moon hubcap on a car.

I removed the reflection from our window with some waxed paper and thinking the problem solved; I went back to my endeavors.

Shortly, I heard the all too familiar banging. Towhee barked. I assumed that the robin had moved his aggressive behavior to another window. He had not. The robin was continuing his fight with the same window. I soaped the window while leaving the wax paper on.

I barely made it to my office when the banging on the windowpane resumed. Towhee now had assumed the posture of head tilted to one side as she looked at the window. This is the way she expresses confusion. I tilted my head to the side. I was confused also. I then added cardboard to the window without removing the soap or the wax paper. This would fix the robin’s wagon, I was convinced.

I almost sat down on my desk chair when the banging began again. The cardboard only worked to amplify the sound. Since I couldn’t see through the glass, I now walked outside to confront my tormentor. The robin was attacking an image that existed only in his memory. He fought so fiercely that he left blood on the window and on the cardboard. He would fight to the point of exhaustion. I could actually pick up the worn-out bird in my hands. This robin needed to enroll in an anger management class.

As the frequency of the bird’s forays into battle failed to lessen over the next couple days, I decided that I needed to spend more time with my feathered friend. I watched the robin arrive early in the morning. He would fly into the yard from undisclosed sleeping quarters and begin his day with a refreshing bath in our birdbath. Then it was time for breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day. He flew to a highbush cranberry shrub. A beautiful plant, this cranberry is what I call a “spinach plant.” There are “ice cream plants” that produce berries that are devoured by birds the minute they become ripe. The raspberries, blueberries and serviceberries in my yard suffer this fate. The “spinach plants” are those that produce fruit that the birds may not be willing to eat until the tastier berries are gone. Some of these berries need a frost on them to make them palatable. Sometimes the fruit of the highbush cranberry hang on the tree all winter long and provide much needed sustenance to the birds arriving in the spring. These were the berries my friend robin was eating.

I watched a seemingly normal robin chow down on the shriveled cranberries. Suddenly, the bird’s demeanor changed—and not for the better. After downing a number of berries, the robin flew rather erratically to the window hidden behind the cardboard and began fighting with the spot where it believed its image to be.

Then it dawned on me. The robin was eating fermented berries. I was dealing with a sloshed robin. This explained his Jekyll and Hyde behavior. There was only one thing to do.

I called the local chemical dependency treatment center. I asked one of the counselors if they treated avian alcoholism. I admitted that I did not know if the bird had insurance to cover the treatment. It sounded like the guy hung up on me. It must have been a bad connection.

©Al Batt