I’ve always been a fan of close encounters with nesting birds – but not ones that could potentially damage our own nest.
The summer we found out we were pregnant with Zoe, a mama mourning dove made her nest in one of our hanging baskets. It was close enough that we could peek at the eggs/babies once in a while, but not close enough to cause any problems for the birds, our house or us people. It was honestly a perfect location and magical experience!
Then, when Z was in her early grade-school years, we had a robin build her nest under our deck. We could hear loud cheeping so we peeked through the cracks in our deck and we were able to watch the babies below us! It was pretty cool – but E was not a fan of the mess they made on our patio so when they had all flown away, he knocked down the nest.
This spring, a very silly robin has been trying to build her nest directly on top of our front door. This is a terrible location for so many reasons!
First, we are constantly coming in and out of that door and would surely scare her or the babies. Second, we have a cat who enjoys going out on our front porch to sun herself; I’m pretty sure the mama robin would not want Galaxy anywhere near her babies. Third, we might want to sell our house soon and having bird poop and nesting materials all over the front porch and/or dripping down the front door is NOT what I’d call curb appeal!
We kept removing the nesting materials over our door and on the porch below it, but the desperate robin simply re-doubled her efforts to build her nest there. I feel bad for her, really I do, but we’re trying to save her potential heartache and tragedy!
I googled “how to keep birds from nesting” and found several ideas, but I didn’t love any of them. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and try something creative. Cats are the natural enemy of birds, right? I figured I’d put a couple of cats up there on the ledge to scare the robin away for good.
Would you believe… my small lion and tiger children’s toys are working wonders? It has been over a week so far, and no sign of her. The robin seems to have moved her potential nest to a different, feline-free location.
I love that we came up with a creative, humane solution that motivated the mama robin to find a different spot. I hope she’s able to find a really good place to build her nest, lay her eggs and raise her babies!
Just not on our front porch.
