To use plant-speak, if this bird had only been an “annual“ occurrence, I wouldn’t even bother you about him.  Ok, that’s a lie.  I did bother some of you the first time that he showed up (last year), before I had my website.  Now that he apparently has turned into a “perennial” bird, it’s time for the second installment of his story.  What the heck is going on in this bird’s head?  Is there a magnet in my body somewhere that attracts these animals?  What is it that he could possibly want?

The bird in question is a male robin that I have named Robby.  He first showed up in the spring of 2007 and started sitting on our door handles.

Anyone home?

This spring, he came back.  Why?

Checking out the woodpile

If he's not sitting on the door handle, he makes himself at home on the woodpile by the back door.

If I go outside, he doesn’t hop too far away.  He shows no interest in wanting to come inside, thank goodness.

Robby leaves his mark

I know you're in there

If he’s not sitting on the door handle, he’s flinging himself at the window.  He’ll start from the deck, or sometimes he sits on one of the deck chairs and fling himself from there into the window.  It makes absolutely no sense. 

What it does do is make a nice mess for me to clean up.  Birds don’t just sit around and do nothing.  They sit around and poop.   A lot.

He doesn’t need to see his reflection to do this.  He seems to follow me from room to room.  All the dogs except Lucky have grown used to his shenanigans.  Lucky will still get up and bark at him through the window, which doesn’t seem to bother Robby at all.

Some friends have speculated that perhaps he’s one of my beloved departed dogs, reincarnated as a bird and back for a visit.  How crazy is that?!     

I knew you might think I was hallucinating, so I put together this little movie to prove to you that I’m not imagining things (click on the round button with the arrow in it to make it play):

Welcome to my world!