Lynxx, Let me share a story with you regarding robins. I am very much into edible landscaping, and as such, do share with the birds at times. However...
It was my second try growing goumi. An expensive bush, they produce a cherry-like fruit early in the year. (It's one of the Eleagnus species) The first one died after 2-3 years without getting big enough to produce fruit.
The second try survived and became a 6' bush. It flower prolifically that year and produce a lot of fruit. I watched the fruit get bigger, then start to turn red. As I watched it color up and noticed the robins eyeing the fruit, but not bothering it yet, I thought I would get some bird net and cover it. Well, I bought the bird net that evening, but it was getting dark and I decided I would cover it in the morning. Well, I got up early the next morning but when I went out to cover the plant, I found that every single, unripe fruit was gone!
The next year, I built a hoop house and moved the bush into it and covered with birdnet, securing it with garden clips quite thoroughly so there were no openings that a bird could get through. Each morning, I checked the net to make sure it was secure and checked the growing fruit. They started to color up, but still unripe, turning red, so I started keeping closer tabs on the plant, fruit and nets. Before the fruit ripened, one morning I got up and looked out the window. There were about 20 robins gathered around my small hoop house! Some sitting on it, clearly eying the unripe fruit. The d**mn birds would fly away, then zoom in, dashing themselves against the net and squawking in frustration. I'd never seen anything like it. I had to fix the net, as some of it was starting to come loose. I reinforced the netting with more clips. Each day, while there was fruit on the bush, this would repeat, but after a week or so, the birds got discouraged and moved on to something else. I got goumi fruit that year.
Well the bush died overwinter, so I had to buy another. I bought from a highly rated (DG top 30!) vendor, who ended up sending me an Autumn Olive instead of a goumi (took several years to determine that, as I had to wait for a very small plant to mature enough to fruit). So after about 10 years, I had fruit one time, spent more than $100 on plants, to say nothing of a hoop house.
Now I used to enjoy watching robins until I start growing blueberries, gooseberries, currants, bush cherries and other small fruits.
The robins are on the same level as rats. In fact, I think of them of winged rats. They do major damage to small fruit growers like myself. It's not a matter of sharing. Robins will remove a fruit from the bush, peck at a few times, drop it, them move back to the bush and get another. They will strip a crop just before it ripens up and won't stop until all the fruits were gone. If I did not use hoop houses, I would never get a single ripe berry. They are that bad.
I like birds, I really do, but robins are rats in disguise and give birds a bad reputation.
These days, if I find a robin's nest on my or my parents property, I will destroy the nest.
If there are eggs or baby birds, I'll let them mature enough to leave the nest, then destroy it. I am, however, always tempted to try a blue omelet
I've spent hundreds of dollars on hoop house, just so I can harvest small fruits. Robins are stubborn and are not easily discouraged.
One good bit of news this year is that we have an alley cat take up residence near my yard. That cat patrols the alley like a solder marching. Up and down the alley he goes. Periodically, he'll disappear into the garden and hide, looking for flying rats. I can't tell if he's ever got one, but he tries, and from the screeching that the rats do all day, I can say that he's helping keep my fruits' survival. Whenever I hear one of my neighbor's complain about the alley cat, I speak up in its favor. He's earning his keep. I may even put some food out for him this winter, to keep him around.
Remind me sometime to tell you my story about the groundhog that ate my garden.
