Dear mother robin,

Yes, I know our porch is lovely. And, to your tiny bird brain at least, it probably seems very safe and secure. Indeed, the covered roof provides us with much shade and protection during the hot summers here in central Illinois. And the ceiling fans really make it comfortable and pleasant. In fact, the porch may be my favorite place in the whole house.

However, our porch is not the best place to build your nest. To be even more specific, the ceiling fan is a very bad choice. First, as you have no doubt noticed repeatedly over the past week, the blades of the fan are very narrow and the straw and bits of nest-building material you put up there just fall back down again (onto our new porch furniture, which is unpleasant). Every single time you have put something up there, it falls down of its own accord. This should be your first clue that this spot is not good nest material. In addition, and I can't believe I actually have to tell you this, our ceiling fans move. When we turn them on, the blades spin around; this should be another clue that this is not the best place to build your nest, unless you like your eggs scrambled. We have tried to help you see the danger of the fans by leaving them on. Yet the minute we turn them off again, you return and begin again, undeterred. Instinct is a terrible thing.

But wait! you protest. My momma robin friend built her nest right near your porch, over there, and you didn't seem to mind. In fact, you seemed pretty interested in her progeny. True, but that momma robin didn't select the single dumbest place to build a nest, and you did. Frankly, we're beginning to doubt you're even qualified to be a parent.

In closing, mother robin, while we are pleased to be your neighbors and don't want to be rude, we here in this household are asking you kindly, one more time, to please take your little stringy bits of nest and assemble them elsewhere. Don't make us ask you again.

Hugs and kisses, Cara, John, dogs, and cat

Comments

[melissa]

C--your birds are truly silly! But I must tell you: when we visited the train museum in Monticello this weekend, we saw a birds nest on the porch of the caboose . . . those birds sure must wonder where their nest--and their chirping babies--go every hour.

[Troy]

Robins aren't the smartest of the bird bunch. We have one that lives in the tree just outside of an upstairs window. For about two weeks as the leaves were starting to come back and the birds were taking back to the tree, one particularly dumb robin refused to stop attacking his/her reflection in the window, banging into it every 30 seconds or so until it tired itself out. This happened daily, without fail. While it was endless entertainment for the cat, it was quite annoying and we had tons of dirty bird (and consequently cat) footprints all over the windows.