Crazy bird...

[Ozz]

I wonder what duties this bird is neglecting, while attacking his mirror image on my Montana Fifth-Wheel trailer all day...

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jimsue64...eat=directlink

[wingerphil]

we have had a cardinal beating itself silly on ours. This is the second year in a row, last year it was a male to the front mirror and this year it's a female to the dining window.

Last year I covered the mirror with a trash bag taped to it and that calmed him down some, still would hit the bedroom window occasionaly though.

I'll be glad when their "courtship" ends and they settle down to being "parents".

[sreigle]

Jim, we had exactly the same problem while in Independence about this same time last year! Except, beside attacking the hitch mirror, this one also attacked the windows back where we sit, driving us nuts (short drive) with his incessant pecking at our windows. And, as you know, we live in this thing full time. We tried just about everything, including buying some mylar windsocks. Those helped but did not totally eliminate it. You could cover that mirror with newspaper or anything nonreflective. By the way, you're going to have a mess to clean off the pinbox!

[Waynem]

Jim,
When I want to see something good looking, I go to the mirror also.

[Ozz]

quote:Originally posted by Waynem

Jim,
When I want to see something good looking, I go to the mirror also.

Wayne! You are killing me..

[JimF]

Wayne is killing all of us...I know for a fact that when Wayne and Earlene go out in the evening she makes him shave his butt and walk backwards.

[Waynem]

Jealous, jealous, jealous!!!

[Rondo]

Ozz-- We have the same thing but ours is attacking the bedroom window in our stick! I checked into it and it(the robin) sees itself and thinks it's another bird and tries to protect his territory from the other robin! We've had ours for about 3-4 years now and it nests in a bush near the house. It leaves quite a mess on both the deck and the window and I see it's doing a good job on your hitch also! LOL you might want to check and see if it is building a nest inside the hitch from the back area. It would be ideal to be nesting there! Keep us informed and who knows you may be the proud grandparents of some new baby robins!

[richfaa]

Birds are extremely stupid..hence the term....bird brain.

[Ozz]

I don't know about that. Thousands of years of evolution has made them quite efficient at surviving. The relatively recent invention-use, of vertical mirrored surfaces (and Glass windows) have caught them between the old learning and adapting curve.
I was wondering how Robins, and other yard birds found something to eat in our lawns, here is something I dug up:
First, robins are usually seen in the lawn doing their worm-hunting first thing in the morning. There's a phrase "The early bird gets the worm" that comes from their habit. The worms are closest to the surface in the morning, because the ground is nice and cool and damp with dew. Later during the day, the ground gets quite hot and the poor worms would roast if they were near the surface.
So now you have a red-breasted robin hopping around on the cool ground, looking for his worm. A study done in the 1990s isolated each of the robin's various senses to see which the robin used most. It turns out that hearing is the most important sense - that the robin listens for the small noises a worm makes while burrowing along in the ground.
The robin DOES use its other senses too - watching for movement, feeling for rumbling with its feet. But the main sense that helps out the most is the robin's hearing. One sense a robin does NOT use is its sense of smell. The robin has a really poor sense of smell, and it would not help out a robin at all.
Birding Site: Kimberly Weiss

[richfaa]

"Thousands of years of evolution has made them quite efficient at surviving" yep and that's it.

[Ozz]

Interesting reading on Bird brains: http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=798

[jimcol]

quote:Originally posted by Ozz

I wonder what duties this bird is neglecting, while attacking his mirror image on my Montana Fifth-Wheel trailer all day...

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jimsue64...eat=directlink

Ozz, He is probably neglecting the building of a nest in one of your customer's furnace flu. Costing you money!!! Jim C.

[Ozz]

Ha! Good point! I need to do as Steve and others suggested and cover it up.

[K&Gs3400RL]

Yup we have one this year to, What a mess

[awaywego]

I had a woodpecker that was pecking on rear window. He pecked the caulking out of the edge. He looked like he was having so much fun a Cardinal decided to help him. They really did a job on the caulk.

[K&Gs3400RL]

I covered up the back window with a sun screen and now the little **** has moved around to the entertainment slide and is flying up to it and pecking.

[Just148]

Ozz, The birds are protacting the terriory. They must have a nest around the area.. The bird think it another bird in his zone...

[Roamingusa]

I had a Baltimore oriel(sp?) at my car side mirror, I tried the shopping bags, he moved...to the window, pooping down the side of the car. So hubby had some large turkey feathers I tied them to my mirror, well this worked great...the next thing I seen was our neighbors cat running through our yard with the bird in his mouth. I thought maybe the bird would think the feathers were a bigger bird, but all they did was attract the cat! Problem solved, but felt sorry for the bird.

[DQDick]

Ozz you know you don't depend on birds building nests in flus. I heard you donate 50 Cottonwood seedlings to the park department every year just to clog up folks AC units. They call, you hose, they pay a service call. Folks around here love that gig.