Second death of the year here this week - and it was a goldfinch! presumed to be a hit on the window as there was no other obvious cause. Had starling with broken neck in about May this year.
Near miss yesterday - loud bang and an impression of wings, head and eye left on the kitchen window (about the size of a sparrow) but no corpse found. Daughter and family had pigeon strike earlier in the year and took an amazing photo of the impression on the window - that one was stunned but eventually came round and flew off with apparently no permanent damage.
What makes them do it?
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!
Hi - sometimes I believe they think they can fly straight threw I don't think they see it as a window as we do. Our windows have colourful butterlies stuck on them large and small just scattered here and there and since doing this we have had no problems - the larger butterfies we use are probably 6/8" across which must alter them to possible danger. other folks stick on silhouttes of birds of prey and this seems to work as well.
Hi OG - We had a male chaffinch who repeatedly flew into our kitchen window as he could see his reflection, thought it was a rival male, and so went into "attack mode". I telephoned RSPB HQ and they advised putting clingfilm on the OUTSIDE of the window as that prevents the reflection from outside but doesn't impede our visibility or light from inside. The attacks stopped immediately and, 6 months later the clingfilm is still holding up well, despite variable temperatures and weather. This would also solve the problem if the birds, rather than seeing their reflection, are seeing a reflection of the garden. As Lucybob says, colourful stickers would also work if you prefer those to clingfilm.
The necessity of bird-watching is a really good reason for avoiding all forms of housework.
The dust will still be there tomorrow - the birds may not be!
This sadly happens quite a lot at my house. From what I can fathom in my case it happens for two different reasons, depending on which window they hit. In the case of my sitting room window it tends to happen mostly when birds are either fighting in the air (our sparrows and greenfinches do this a lot) or when they are frightened in to the air by the neighbour's cat - I think they just fly willy-nilly to excape danger and hit the window before they realise what they're doing. In the case of my conservatory, however, it is surely because when the blinds are all open they can see right through to the other side and thus think they can also fly right through. We've only ever had three deaths (to our knowledge) though - one from the sitting room window, and two from the conservatory - all three of them were greenfinches. The rest of the strikes result in lots of strewn feathers and some stunned birds to varying degrees but these all survive, either on their own or with encouragement from me.
Hi OG,
Had the sama happen here too - have since put stickers on the windows which have stopped the collisions. The windows reflect back the garden or the outside and the birds think they can see straight through.
Regards
Kerry
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kezmo6310/
Had the same problem but read that spider webs are a detterent. bought some stick on webs from pet shop and up to now this seems to have worked.
Birds Rule
Hi,
Anything that makes the window look less transparent does the job.
We put stickers on to deter them. But we had to put a bead curtain on the back door because they kept flying in and then trying to knock themselves out by flying straight at the window trying to get out. Swallows are by far the worst for it IMHO (or maybe that's just here?), and so difficult to catch and release compared to chaffinches !
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.