Well, here it is, nearly the end of June, and I have been engaged with a persistent nester-wannabe in the form of a robin. In spring of last year, I spent some time discouraging a robin attempting to build its nest on the motor of my garage-door opener. After some blocking tactics, the robin finally gave up and I was safe for the summer.
Well, once again this past May, nest building commenced once again on the door-opener motor (the same one since it’s a two-car garage). Since all robins look alike to me (forgive me for being prejudiced) there was no way to tell if it was the same bird or not. Robins only mate for the summer, then break up once breeding season is over. Interestingly, it is the female only who engages in nest building. I assume the male stands by and tries to give directions and maybe provides nesting material. But I suspect it was the same bird as last year.
I used the same strategy as last year and activity ceased, or so I thought. A few weeks ago, the garage-door motor in that part of the garage began malfunctioning, so I called the garage-door repair service people. A nice young man showed up, who was thorough and seemed to know his stuff. He cleaned out some remaining debris from the motor, checked its connections but could see no issues. The problem turned out to be the button on the wall which I use to open the door. It apparently had a short, so he replaced it and all was well.
It wasn’t until a day later, when I had left the door open for a while during the afternoon, that I discovered nesting activity had resumed with a vengeance.
In a startling short space of time, the robin had returned and resumed building, I’m guessing at warp speed, for after chasing it off, I swept the above large ball of grass off the motor. It was already well shaped and ready for the mud addition for the interior. Talk about persistent! I would have thought that the robins would have already been involved with a nest they built somewhere else, but I suspect there was a nesting failure, so they were starting over. And of course there was this ideal spot they already knew of!
So I’m back to keeping the garage doors closed until such time as I think it may be safe. I hope.
Have a happy and safe July!
