When I woke up this morning, I could hear a strange noise coming from somewhere nearby.
It sounded like someone was shooting baskets, but there are no hoops around here. I spent an hour waking up, checking email, checking the news online, and the whole time there was this sort of thumping sound. What was it? I wondered. Garbage men? Crews doing yardwork? Finally I got curious and paced around the house to locate the source of the noise.
Which is when I discovered a robin redbreast repeatedly hurling himself against the sliding glass door that opens onto the back patio.
Near the door there’s a three-foot-tall potted tree, and this bird would fly up to the peak of the tree, then leap toward the living room, then bounce off the glass and flutter to the ground. He would peck at the glass a few times, then jump back up onto the tree and repeat the process. And he had been at this for at least an hour already. I couldn’t believe it.
For a while I just stood there, transfixed with a sort of weird fascination. It’s not every day that you get to see a robin redbreast so close and so obviously off his gourd.
Finally it occurred to me that he might injure himself by repeatedly bouncing off the glass, so I opened the door and shooed him away.
… and as soon as my back was turned, he started right up again.
I wondered what was going through this bird’s mind. Why did he want to get into my house so badly? I was half-tempted to let him in, just to see what he would do next, but then I thought he might be one of those rabid and/or zombie birds — judging by his behavior — so I decided maybe I shouldn’t. I was also tempted to feed him, since I felt like he ought to get something for his trouble, but I was afraid that would only encourage him.
I decided that the most diplomatic way to handle the situation would be to just close the blinds. Surely then, I thought, he would give up on the idea of getting through the glass. So I closed the blinds.
And the bird kept right on bouncing off the window.
Then I thought: Maybe he’s not trying to get through the glass after all. Maybe he’s trying to mate with his reflection? I don’t know.
Anyway, he was starting to seriously scuff the window, so I went outside and yelled and waved a lacrosse stick at him. He retreated to the branch of a tree up the hillside.
And as soon as I went inside, he went right back to hurling himself against the window.
I went outside and chased him off again. I threw rocks in his general direction until he fled from view. Then I went in and took a shower.
I just got out of the shower and he’s back AGAIN. What the hell?
You always hear these stories about people who, after a loved one dies, take in some stray animal that shows up at the house, and these people think that somehow the animal is their reincarnated loved one. I always thought that was silly, but watching the bizarre behavior of this bird makes me more sympathetic toward those people. If I had a loved one who had recently died and who had lived at this house, and then this weird bird shows up trying desperately so to get inside, well … it would be eerie.
Update: A quick Google search resolves this mystery.
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