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Territorial birds may have caused homeowners a bit of stress lately.
Robins have been spotted pecking, scratching and even colliding with the windows and mirrors, on parked vehicles and homes.
Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of New Brunswick Dr. Joe Nocera explained why, “They are trying to establish their territories right now, and also attract a mate. The males are highly aggressive and they are almost certainly seeing their reflections in the glass.”
Dr. Nocera says it’s a matter of getting the best territory possible, “Each male then owns this piece of property and then the females make their decisions about who to mate with.”
If this is the first year you’ve ever experienced this, Dr. Nocera says, “It could be there is more food in the area now, or it could be the population of robins in the area is a bit denser now than it used to be.”
For those who have found a lot of unwanted droppings on your vehicles, there is relief to know this isn’t expected to continue all summer, “By early June, the females will have chosen a nest site, and the nest will get built. First week of June the eggs will get laid, they’ll hatch and by the end of the first or second week of June.”
If the sight of the robin collisions has you worried about the birds, Dr Nocera offers these suggestions, “If two robins are fighting it normally doesn’t end in injury, but it can. In this case though, the second robin, the reflection, isn’t fighting fair, so the first robin could get injured. You need to get the robins to realise that they are not looking at themselves. If you put some sort of visual disruption on the glass. Some people hang strings or streamers, others put decals in the windows.”
He says this is something home and car owners might consider doing at other times of the year as well, “It’s probably a good idea to have window discouragement regardless, because during migration, sometimes birds don’t realise what they’re seeing in the window isn’t an actual tree or a forest, it is a reflection of a tree or a forest and they end up striking a window and sometimes they can die.”
