Bird Window Collisions

Window collisions occur when a bird sees a reflection of the sky in a window or other reflective substance.

Birds can not distinguish between an authentic flyway, if you will, and a pane of glass. Unwittingly, the creature flies directly into the window oftentimes with such velocity that the bird dies.

If its lucky, a dazing is the end result. If that’s the case, the bird will fly off after a few minutes.

Don’t mistake this circumstance with a robin or cardinal that repeatedly attacks its reflection in a mirror or window. This behavior is typically a territorial response that occurs during nesting season. The reflection is an “intruder” and one way or another, it must go. My advice is that you not worry about it. The bird is unlikely to hurt itself.

However, about half of all window collisions result in the birds death. I’ve witnessed birds as large as a hawk and as small as the Tennessee Warbler die from these impacts. Typically, most collisions occur during both the Fall and Spring migrations, but they can occur at any time.

It’s important to note too that some of these impacts take place because birds are spooked or being chased by predators. I worked at a college once where the roof of a breeze way was literally littered with bird carcasses. Steps were at last taken to reduce the problem. Here’s what you can do.

Locate your feeder station some distance away from windows with intense reflections of the sky. Don’t worry about your window feeder—its presence is breaking up any “false flyway” and is too close for fleeing birds to become injured due to impact.
I love the latest window decals. Use to be we had to use black cardboard cutout, but not so anymore. The Window Alert product is nearly transparent to our eye, but a birds 120,000 photoreceptive cells per square millimeter (compare to human at 10,000) and 500,000 cell rods per square millimeter (compare to humans 200,000) permit it to see these decals with ease. Use them folks, they work!!
They are packaged in twos and should be placed in groups of 3 square feet.
I have some customers who swear by vertical outdoor tape strips place a few inches apart. I’ve not tried this myself, but it seems logical enough. Bust up the reflection!
Lower your inside blinds half way. This is such a simple solution that you should be doing it anyway!

Millions of wild birds are killed each year by window collision. Follow the above steps and you can help reduce this wasteful loss of wild life.

I hope you found this article about wild birds and window collisions useful. Click here for more great information about backyard birding. Click here for more great information about bird feeders and bird houses.