But first, a little backstory. I know, I know, that's the best way to kill the opening of your novel but this isn't a book, it's a blog post. ;)

We have a small section of roof overhanging our back patio and it's held up by a post at an angle of 45 degrees. A number of years ago, the robins discovered the little v crotch and have been building nests there pretty much every year.

We didn't mind so much the first year or two because the first robin families we had were quite well behaved. We didn't bother them, they didn't bother us. One year I even managed to get a series of pictures, right from the eggs in the nest to the fledglings to the babies finally leaving the nest.

All was fine or so we thought. However, the next year, an aggressive pair moved in. I don't know, maybe they thought we were thugs, but we couldn't move in the back patio without being dive bombed by feathered fighter jets. After a few days of that, enough, we decided. Once they moved out, no more nesting robins.

Every year after that, any time we saw a nest being built, we covered it up with a blue strawberry bucket. That worked great, so great in fact, we had a few years where the robins wouldn't even try and nest. Okay doke, problem solved.

Until this year. We had a cold weekend early in May and spent it inside. When we finally ventured out a couple of days later, sure enough, there was a nest. My husband couldn't find the blue strawberry bucket so he stacked a sprinkler and a plant caddy (the flat platforms with the little wheels) on top of it. Problem solved, or so he thought. Next morning, lo and behold, somehow the female had managed to wriggle her way through the obstructions and was sitting pretty as you please on the nest. Hmm. Not good. Unfortunately, I did not think to take a picture so you'll have to take my word for it.

Okay, it was time for the blue strawberry bucket. I hauled it out, and my husband placed it on the nest. When we looked out the window the next morning, somehow those two robins had managed to push the bucket off and there she was again, sitting on the nest.
Now, I don't know about you but I really had a tough time imagining robins could move something that heavy but I suppose where there's a will, there's a way. ;)
Once again, we checked for eggs and seeing none, this time my husband jammed the bucket on the nest. That worked! After a few days of flying by and complaining noisily, the robins took the hint and moved on. Victory was ours!

Or so we thought. Only a few days later, a pair of finches started building a nest INSIDE the bucket. We just looked at each other. Now what? Okay, they're finches, how aggressive can they be? Let's give it a go and see what it happens, we thought. That piece of string you see dangling from the front of the bucket? A finch brought that in if you can believe it.

At the end of the day, they didn't stick around. I was out a lot planting pots and such and I think they thought the patio too busy. They're still in the yard because I can hear them but they've built their nest somewhere else. Thank goodness!

A little footnote: If you scroll through my earlier blog posts, you will see the same bucket with a robin's nest on top of it. ;)