Things That Go Bump in the Night

In the back of our house, we have two sliding doors and two doorwall-sized windows. Over time, birds, bugs, and bats have flown right into these glass doors and large windows, bounced off, and continued on their journeys, no worse for the wear. This has routinely happened about once a week or so for the past 18 years. We hear a thump, glance outside, and see some stunned wayward critter flapping away. On Monday morning, three birds, all within a few hours of each other, crashed loudly into our back window. I was somewhat surprised to hear so many bumps in such a short time period, but didn't think too much more about it. Later that evening, Jacob and I were sitting in the family room when we heard an intense boom. We both jumped up to see what was going on, and noticed that two robins had simultaneously flown into our sliding door - evidently at a very high rate of speed - and had ricocheted onto the deck. With the force of the collision, I was relieved that the doorwall was still intact! Jacob and I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation, and nicknamed the birds "Dumb" and "Dumber." Unfortunately, these particular avian visitors didn't immediately pop up and fly off like their counterparts have always done in the past. One of the robins writhed and twitched in obvious pain until it flopped over and croaked right before our eyes. The other bird loped around on an apparent injured leg, never hobbling too far from his deceased friend. He thrashed about and fluttered his wings, but couldn't seem to get airborne. We were baffled as to what, if anything, we could do to assist, and I tried to reassure Jacob that incidents like this just sometimes occur in nature. After helplessly watching the robin for about 20 minutes, we were happy to witness it miraculously maneuver up into our maple tree. We haven't checked underneath the tree for a bird carcass yet, but we are hopeful that "Dumb" is ok and back in his nest somewhere.

By the way, birds have continued to fly and divebomb into our glass with increasing frequency this week. And, no, we have not cleaned our windows recently. I wonder what's up with that?

Bye-bye birdie.