I read an article in Scientific American a few years back about birds. It said, if I remember correctly, that birds really don't have much of a sense of taste, mainly just sense sugar. Supposedly, their vision sees much more into ultraviolet than ours. Fruit eating birds are supposed to take fruit based on color, much of it UV colors that we can't see. A red cherry, for example, may not seem red to a bird and be ignored until the cherry develops a UV color that triggers the bird to start eating it. I wish I could find the article again, as I'm sure there might be a clue to how to control robins there.
There are a lot of bird control products out there, including some high tech ones.
Take a look at this site for some interesting ones:
http://www.wildlife-control.co...
