At the risk of inviting a snowstorm, I think Spring is really doing its thing. Why do I think this? Because the robins are doing their thing. Every year we have to fight to keep the local industrious robins from building their nests in really inappropriate places. Two years ago, we didn’t really think about it and a robin built his nest right above the door to our woodshed.
Let me tell you, having a robin scream at you every time you go to get some wood or a shovel is no fun. On the one hand, I understood that the robin was defending the nest. On the other hand, building a nest in such a high-traffic area is a really dumb thing to do. So we coexisted and eventually the the baby robins flew the nest and all was well. We put a rock up there to discourage future nesting activities.
Until the next year, when the robins decided to build *inside* the dog kennel. We have a covered dog kennel and the tops of the 6×6 posts that hold up the roof (apparently) to a robin look like great nest spots. I beg to differ. Anyplace that houses 4 noisy dogs is not a great place for a nest. I had bad dreams of a dog proudly showing off a baby bird in its mouth. Ugh.
So every day, I went out, climbed up, and removed the piles of moss and mud that the robin had dutifully placed on a post that day. I replaced the nest material with a nice round rock. Nest material falls off round rocks. Eventually, after many days of this, there was nice round rock on every post.
Meanwhile, while I was busy with all this activity, another robin managed to squeeze a nest into one of the nooks created where the roof meets the top set of logs on our house. This nest unfortunately was near our front door. So we were squawked at every time we went outside. Oh well.
We removed the old robin’s nest from the nook, and we’re watching the spot carefully this year. However, now they’ve picked an even more unusual location. Our garage has floodlights on the front. There is sort of a "v" in the middle, which (apparently) to a robin looks like a good nest site. I beg to differ.
Every day James takes a shovel that’s been duct-taped to a closet rod and removes the moss and dirt that makes up the flood-light nest. Every day the robin tries to build again. Our garage is starting to get a green mossy coating along the front. Of course, this could all be a diversionary tactic as they make another nest elsewhere.
We’ll know soon enough.