A bird in the hand is worth...

Okay, so it looks weird. We had to do it; we had no choice.

It was either that or buy a shotgun to blast a hole in a giant male robin that each morning--at the BUTT-CRACK of dawn--would fly headlong, chest first, into our window. With a rhythm that Gene Krupa would admire--albeit a slow one--he'd sit on a dead branch of the rhodadendron below the window, view his reflected image in all its testosterone puffery, and then fly up and crash into the window with a loud "THUNK!" Over and over and over again. I tried turning the face of the half-mannequin that resides in the bay window toward the robin to scare him but he was undeterred. Over and over and over again. Bird-mass against tempered glass. HHarvey began sleeping with a giant pillow over his ears...I found myself sleeping in 20 second intervals.

What to do? what to do??

Well, ever the master of jury rigging (I don't care what you call it--this is the least offensive way to say it!), I took HHarvey to Pat Catan's so we could brainstorm amidst all the crafty options.

A few purchases, a ladder, some tape and a few pushpins later: the bay window in our bedroom is now covered in gold-star-studded crinkled cellophane with gaudy circly-and-mirrored-thingies hanging from the top of the frame. All meant to distract and deter our feathery window crasher. As an added touch, we trimmed a couple of the dead branches from the rhodadendron to reduce the number of opportunities for launching and HHarvey moved some loud windchimes to one of the remaining branches.

For a while, it appeared that our robin was appalled that we weren't arrested by the Bath police for non-code window decorations (we assume they'll be showing up any time now)...he avoided the frippery like the plague. (I later found that he had switched to his old "stand-by" window--one located in an upper turret off of the upstairs guest bedroom. And as far as I'm concerned--as long as Dao isn't staying up there--he can "thunk" away until his ribs crack and his brains are scrambled.)

However, this morning while I was getting ready for work, I heard one singular and familiar "THUNK!" at our bedroom window! But this time the sound was accompanied by a noise not unlike the rustling of a plastic grocery bag. Ah! The crinkled cellophane! I waited but no other sound followed. I went to the window and he was gone. Hey, I can't blame the guy for trying but he must have found it annoying and unsatisfying so he booked. Maybe he went to flag down the police--I fear this fight isn't over yet...