"There'll always be a screwball," he said, "even among birds." Morning after morning (and this was referring to something that happened, quite a while ago, and then seemed to abate), a blackbird, pecking at his own image in a window, used to awaken us around first light. Then a sheet of paper was put up so that he could not see his image reflected in the glass - apparently the cause of the trouble, the bird thinking this was a rival. It wasn't a very big window, was upstairs directly over the bedroom, and anyway you have to get up sometime. Fine. Then he returned his attentions to the kitchen, which has a long window. He had a particularly easy point of attack from a curling branch, which brought him to within a foot of the pane. Again, a sheet of white paper. But this time not so successful, because the branches of the rambling rose ran all along the window. Dammit, you couldn't cover the whole of the window just because of him. (Must be a himmale aggression.) Is it now the mating season that has intensified the activity? Letting off steam? Anyway, in the last couple of weeks it has come to the point that from first dawn to middle of the afternoon, the bang, bang goes on. You don't have to do much to move him. Just appear at the window or open a door and he's off, sailing over a high wall, as if making for the distance.
Woodpeckers and other birds have head structures and brains adapted to their constant drilling at trees, including their beaks, but is this poor creature going to ruin its beak and scramble its brains in this daily assault? At a rough guess he must now be chalking about a hundred bangs a day. Well, say 50. An interesting thing is that when we came to live here 40 years or so ago, we had in the garden a family of blackbirds, or a tribe, who had strong streaks of white in their make-up, mostly, though not all, in their wings. We can't remember whether they had white on their breasts, but white was there in their plumage for generation after generation of the birds. Slowly the marking diminished and then either it disappeared or maybe we were just not looking.
Anyway, this glass-pecker of today has slight white feather-marking in his wings. The apparent nonchalance with which he moves off when the door is opened or a bang is set up in response to his own assault, might make you think that birds have a sense of humour, too. But it's real, and just now becoming a bit tiresome. Any bright ideas?" Answer: No, just thole it until they nest. The very building of the nest, guarding the eggs, feeding the chicks will probably distract the male enough to keep him from annoying you. Hope. Y