As I write this, every few seconds I hear a male cardinal thumping hard against the window. He flies into it at full speed, probably thinking he is attacking a rival. When the window stops him, he backs off and tries again right away. He has been doing this on all the windows and glass doors in my house for weeks. Although other birds will, rarely, blunder into the window by accident, sometimes with fatal results, this bird is doing it deliberately, yet not getting harmed. It’s an annoying sound.
Stupid bird.
A nature expert I know says male cardinals are one of the most aggressive birds, and commonly attack their reflections. He leaves smudge marks, but so far hasn’t broken a pane or left a dent. It’s tempting to consider shooting him, but I don’t have a shotgun and it might be a dangerous thing to do – it would just be my luck that someone walked by as I dispatched him.
One spring we had a little fellow we called ‘The Tapper’ Every afternoon for a weeks he would come over, cling to the side of the window and tap vigorously on the window for a while. It was spring and the afternoon light was low so we figured it was an mirror effect/aggresion thing but I could see him from my desk and he could see me. I waved a few times but he was pretty busy so we never exchanged pleasantries.
On the other hand, I found a terracotta (yes, I knew the irony before I bought it!) bird statue that looked neat on the railing of the front door porch and it would make birds furious during nesting season because they would build nests in the bushes next to the door. Every year some bird family would move in and lay eggs THEN the male would notice the giant monster Intruder and scream at it daily.
Yup, that terracotta bird was some chick magnet, I’ll tell ya’.
Cardinals are some of the dumbest birds around. They would get into my pool area (old house),
and would forget how they got in. The local wrens had no problems getting in and out, but the
cardinals were clueless, and would fly around in a panic until I went out and opened the doors.
And even then they would have trouble finding the exits.
If he’s bothering you that much, just report him to the Pope.
Oh, that kind of Cardinal. Have you tried sticking a black sillhouette of another bird on the window? That’s what I see most often in commercial buildings where they want to discourage birds from flying into the glass. I dunno if that works for birds who are doing it to be aggressive though, it’s intended for the ones who just don’t see the glass.
Good idea, although I doubt if real birds are fooled. Think of how many crows you see perching on scarecrows.
The problem is my bird feeder is just outside my main window, where I can watch the birds, squirrels and other neighborhood denizens while I work on the computer. If I imitate a bird of prey sillhouette, it may drive away the other birds, and the cardinal might not be intimidated at all.
Today he hasn’t been around yet. Maybe he had a tough night, painting the town red with his macho antics and he’s still sleeping it off.
We had a cardinal who lived in our yard when he wasn’t off on his annual migration who for the first two years flew into our laundry room door every few minutes for weeks on end. He finally found a mate and the last two years we lived there didn’t do it any more, to our great relief. We never did find anything that would stop him, including the cat sitting on the porch roof right above the door watching him.
Cardinals are really dumb, and all that pounding certainly didn’t help our guy’s brains any!
That would kinda interfere with my vision thru it, now wouldn’t it? And it might not repel the bird, since he doesn’t seem to be concentating on the cleaner panes. Unless the window were totally obscured, I think he would think his rival just needed a bath or was behind a curtain.
This weather, hovering around 0F, it would be soapy ice.
We had the exact same thing happen. We tried everything…balloons in front of the window, closed blinds, etc. We finally did have to shoot the bird. It was sad.
All that excitement from winning the World Series has left me a little confused. Are you saying your house isn’t the front offices of Busch Stadium? I’m sorry. I was just trying to get back to my comfy life and little brown bird harem.
Yes, it would make the window less useful to you. It’s just a choice between worrying about the bird or not seeing clearly. The bird doesn’t see the room inside, he only sees a reflection of the yard, and himself. The film would make it look like a wall. You could get the same effect by putting a light inside each window to overpower his reflection from outside. That’s not much of a fix either, unless you don’t mind running bright lights all day.
You and I can look at our own reflections in a window, and we won’t think it’s another person. We can recognize our own images. Birds can’t do that, so they play these stupid games. I could pass the time by comparing silly things humans do, but that’s another story. :rolleyes: