Open letter to the robin pecking on my GTI’s mirrors

Dear Mr. or Ms. Robin (likely Mr.), I'm sorry to address you in such an impersonal manner, but I don't know your name.

Also, I don't know if you're able to read blog posts. If not, I sympathize, because we live in a rural area with crappy slow-speed DSL "broadband" (not!) for us humans, so I can only imagine how poor Internet access is for you birds.

Regardless, I wanted to thank you for your dedication in bringing some challenges, along with bird poop, to my generally serene retired existence.

You are not the first robin to come into the life of my wife and me. Back in 2003 I wrote "Further evidence of male idiocy."

Now, there's a title for a book, a really long book. I have an item to contribute to it. Not involving me, of course. That would be ridiculous, to think that I have ever, am now, or will in the future engage in any act that could fall under the rubric of "male idiocy" (the skeptical laughter from cyberspace is already ringing in my ears).

No, this is about the bird I like to affectionately call Bastard Robin, or even nicer names, depending upon how many tons of bird poop I find splashed on my Volvo wagon each day.

I'm no expert on bird behavior, but I believe these are the basic facts.

Bastard Robin wants to father some offspring. It isn't enough that he screw some sweet young female robin. In his delusional, and seemingly infinitesimal, robin brain, he is determined to be the only male in the whole wide world screwing a sweet young female robin, so all the baby robins everywhere will carry on the genetic heritage of Bastard Robin.

Hence, his singleminded determination to rid the neighborhood of other male robins. Now that makes some sense, I guess. But now the male idiocy kicks in, stimulated by what a character on Ally McBeal was fond of calling the man's "dumb stick."

In searching about for other male robins, so he can kick their feathered ass, Bastard Robin always comes upon himself first thing in the morning.

He (or they; I can't tell them apart) used to wake us up by fluttering against our bedroom window, trying to chase away that robin S.O.B. he could see when he peered at the glass, and who bore such a strking resemblance to himself, and who mirrored his every move, the crafty kung fu fighter.

We put shades over the window and carefully drew them down every night, believing that this had solved the Bastard Robin problem.

Actually, it just moved the problem.

Now he has found the windshield and rear view mirrors of my (previously clean) car. When I drive into the carport, I often see him flying off from a rafter, where he has been lying in wait for Bastard Robin2 to return.

And yes!, there he is, just as before, on the other side of the windshield and mirror, taunting with his antics that are so similar to Bastard Robins'. He thinks, "I am so angry! I am so frustrated! I can never reach Bastard Robin2! What should I do? Why, I will poop! And poop, and poop, to show Bastard Robin2 just who is the Biggest Baddest Robin around here."

Then, in 2011, I wrote "How we stopped a robin's pecking on window glass." The solution, which you're aware of, because I've used it on you in 2019, as shown below, was netting that I attached over several bedroom windows.

(Note: in that post I mentioned how female robins also are territorial, and can peck on windows or glass.)

I apologize for using the term Bastard Robin in my first post. Like I said, this was an affectionate term, at least insofar as a semi-profane name for a bird can be viewed as affectionate. In what follows I've tried to be more respectful to your species. In fact, even laudatory.

First, thank you for making the concrete floor of our carport so much more artistic. The splashes of white robin poop have a pleasing abstract quality to them. Random, yet purposeful. There is a special message accompanying the precise placement of your poop so close to the tire track of my VW GTI.

I believe I understand your message. Likely it is, in line with my 2003 blog post, "I'm going to drive away that damn male robin that I see in the rear view mirrors." Yes, actually it is you, so you are at war with yourself. But aren't we all, to some extent?

I'm sorry to interfere with your battle of Me vs. Me, but the Lifesource Natural Foods grocery bags I've been putting over the rear view mirrors are necessary to keep my daily poop cleaning to a minimum. And they add a certain flair to my car absent in the original VW design.

Now, I realize that you birds are complex beings, so I may have erred in assuming that your sole motivation in attacking my car's rear view mirrors was to drive away a robin that looks just like you. The oft-heard saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" could be adapted in your case to "Absence makes my robin heart pissed off." 

The absence being the removal of a nest from this area under our carport's roof. When you started pecking at the windows of our house a few weeks ago, I looked around and found the nest. I admit that I was the one who got a ladder and removed it, but it was my wife who took it into the woods and put it on a stump. 

So I'd like to suggest that if you're pissed (or more accurately, pooped) at me, you should direct half of your ire — and poop — at my wife's car — which is the Chevy Volt to the left of my car. 

And in the interest of transparency, I want to add that even though I don't think you have any emotional attachment to this nest, this afternoon I removed it from a bush to the right of our front door that has been a home for robin's nests in the past.

My wife believes a bluejay was contemplating this as a home, but decided to pass on it — maybe because it didn't have a three car garage, or fast broadband. At any rate, it's sitting at the base of an oak tree if you'd like to use twigs from it in your nest far away from our house, and my car. Oh, did you see the mention of far away?

Lastly, I want to express my thanks for you leading me to make this addition to our house, albeit a temporary one. I certainly wouldn't call myself a handyman, but you helped me explore the fine art of using masking tape and netting to create a robin barrier over four windows that, while admittedly lacking in artistry, has a certain rustic flair to it.

And when I look out of the window from inside our house, I'm reminded of how precious freedom is — since the netting offers up a glimpse of what prison life would be like, assuming my cell was designed to keep robins out, rather than humans in.