mental illness in the wild

NaeNae55

I have a mentally ill robin outside my window. It has been trying to get through my window (covered by blinds) for over an hour.

I am sure there must be a federal agency for this kind of thing. Does anyone know who to call?

:help:

Seriously, something IS wrong with this bird. I have brought my phone within inches of the window to take a picture and it just watches me. I wish it would go pick on someone else.

cnghr

Around here we call the State Fish & Game department for animal/bird issues...of course in this part of the world that usually means an injured bald eagle, not a crazy robin!

NaeNae55

I got here about 8:15 and the little guy was out there. By 9:45 I was starting to go a little crazy myself. I started talking to other employees, who mostly came in and laughed or expressed concern for the poor bird. We closed and open the blinds, closed and opened the windows, turned my lights off and on, and went outside and tried to scare it away a few times or feed it bread. Nothing worked. Finally 2 co-workers covered my window with white plastic table cloth material. It is after noon and no longer banging on my window. It just sits on the sill and peeks under the white plastic at me.

cnghr

Poor silly bird....it must see something it thinks is really interesting in your office. Maybe it's fed up with life in the wild and hopes you'll take it in and make a pet out of it!

NaeNae55

It is almost 2:30 and it is still sitting there, crouched low and fluffed up (it's kind of cold outside today). I just put some birdseed on the sill but he is leaving it alone as he did the bread. I think something is wrong with this poor little Robin.

cnghr

Sounds like it's sick, or maybe it's injured and can't fly. Poor thing!

Still Need Coffee

I don't know why, but this thread really made me laugh out loud. I am such a terrible person!

NaeNae55

There has been some serious chuckling around here too. BTW, Robin is still outside my window today. I took the plastic down before I left Friday, and he must have spent the weekend trying to fly into my office. There are plenty of marks on my window, but they are wing smudges and nothing more. He has spent most of the day looking in with occassional attempts to come in. He went around the corner and tried to come into my co-worker's window, but soon came back. He looks very young. He is either trying to find his home, or build himself his first nest. I think it is the former.

cnghr

Have you ever seen the children's book "Are You My Mother?" where a young bird goes around asking all these different animals/objects if they're his mother? Maybe this little guy's fixated on you as a mother figure, Nae!

NaeNae55

Yes, several people have told me he thinks I'm his mom.

This morning I thought he was gone as I only saw a big black bird, but while I was typing this he returned. I am SOOOO lucky. O:) Actually, as long as he doesn't spend the day banging on my window every few seconds I am happy to have him out there, brightening my day.

bkailiuli

Kind of creepy. Makes me think of Alfred Hitchcock.

cnghr

So, Nae, whatever happened to your little birdy friend?

NaeNae55

Rob (I named him Robin and we call him Rob) was here all morning. He has been here all day since last week. This afternoon, however, he is nowhere in sight. I don't think that is because he has moved on, even though he is starting to eat up to 20 feet from the window. I think it has more to do with the nasty weather. Either way, he is becoming more adventurous and I am sure it is only a matter of time before he moves on. I fear another bout of 'empty nest syndrome' will hit me soon.

cnghr

Maybe he just needed a mom to watch over him while he figured out how to navigate the big wide world. Good job, mama bird!

NaeNae55

Um..I spoke to soon. The sun is back out and Rob is once again repeatedly flying into my window. Poor thang.

NaeNae55

I was just starting to worry about Rob as he has been at my window all morning without once running into it. I was wondering if I was mistaken, and that he had not actually fallen from the nest and landed on his head or caught some neurological disease that made him too stupid to realize the window was not going away.

I can relax though. All is normal. He has once again flown at my window and bounced off a couple of times.

cnghr

I've started wondering about the mental health of robins in general. This weekend we went on a couple of lengthy drives and I can't tell you the number of times robins flew across the road right in front of us, at a perfect level that if it had misjudged by a fraction of a second we would have hit it. There are a lot of other birds around here, but interestingly, only the robins seem to fly across the road at vehicle height.

My take on it was that a)robins enjoy playing "chicken" with cars or b)many robins are suicidal but just aren't successful at it.

NaeNae55

Rob has not come to see me all week. I guess it was a friendship made NOT to last. It is strange though, that he drove me so crazy at first and now I miss him. He left me some memories on the windowsill, but I really could have done without those.

cnghr

Hopefully Rob has just moved on to live a normal birdy life somewhere. It's funny how we can get used to something that originally drove us nuts!