One of the benefits of pneumonia, if such a thing can be said, is that it mandates idleness. Little more can be done other than sit, read, nap, read a little more, nap a lot more, all spiced liberally with administration of various medications along the way. If it wasn’t for the lack of ability to breathe well and the side-effects of one of the medications keeping me from sleeping soundly, all-in-all, it’s not so bad.
During my waking moments, I have the benefit of the birds visiting the feeders just outside the window to keep me company. As the weather has been fair as of late, there hasn’t been the dense flocks commonly seen this time of year when harsh weather prevails. However, the unseasonably pleasant conditions of the past week have brought a few irregular visitors to the property; most noticeably American Robins, Turdus migratorius.
As I have previously written, our property is just above the “robin line;” the imaginary boundary just uphill from the low-lying farm fields on reclaimed river bottom land, which replete as they are with both earthworms and assorted berry-bearing plants, give the local robins no reason whatsoever to venture uphill toward out property on the edge of the tall evergreens. The usual exception to this are the juvenile robins who, not entirely unlike wanderlust-filled human youth out to spread their wings and explore the world, tend to roam far and wide in search of “the new.”
Yet in the past few days half a dozen adults have paid a call to the yard. Not particularly interested in the feeders, they comb the grounds and ply the remaining layer of dead leaves in search of invertebrates. Often, they simply find an advantageous perch in a tree from which they sit surveying the surrounding area as if it has long been established as their territory. The Black-capped chickadees, Poecile atricapilla, and the Red-breasted Nuthatches, Sitta canadensis, appear to take little notice and care even less; they know who was here first.
Yesterday, I was awakened by a repeated thumping on one of the large windows in the living room. One thump almost certainly means a bird struck the window (fortunately, they never seem to hit hard enough to even stun themselves, and yes, we take precautions to try to prevent them from striking at all but some still do). Five or six small thumps means that the male Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Regulus calendula, who favors the camellia bush just outside the dining room window has once again forgotten that he can’t fly through that glass-sealed portal. But this present thumping was stronger, from a larger bird, and spaced completely differently.
Dragging myself from the chair in the library, I crept around into the kitchen. Unlike those in the living room where the thumping sounds were emanating, the kitchen blinds were open and offered a view of the outside of the living room windows. When I reached my observation point, I had quite a sight – a very upset robin “boxing” its image in the living room window. I had not previously seen this behavior but recalled it once mentioned in a book. Heading straight for one of my favorite volumes of the subject, The American Robin by Roland H. Wauer, I quickly confirmed what I recalled. “There are numerous records of territorial robins attacking their own image in a windowpane or mirror” wrote Wauer.
After five minutes of battling the image in the window to a draw, the robin retreated back to the spruce twenty yards behind the house, puffed out its breast, and went back to looking smug. The chickadees and the nuthatches continued to be unimpressed. I went back to my chair and went back to sleep, thoroughly exhausted by the activity.
Peace and good bird watching.
