About 10 days ago, a brown headed cow bird showed up in my yard, only one male as far as I can tell. I do have bird feeders so that might have attracted it. It came to my office window in the basement, where I sit at my desk just three feet away. The bird started pecking on the window glass and occasionally spreading its wings and fluffing its feathers in a display. It did this for much of the day, flying off and coming back periodically.
At first I thought it was seeing its reflection, but I checked and the lighting was such that there was no reflection. The bird continued this behavior for a few days, and then it started following me to other parts of the house. Now it’s a regular thing: When I get up from my desk to go upstairs for lunch, it appears at a window on that level and pecks incessantly. When I go back to the basement, it goes to the basement window again.
This past weekend, it was pecking on the main level windows as I tried to sleep late upstairs. I was keeping my bedroom curtains closed for fear of it finding me, but after an hour of pecking on the main level it found my bathroom window and was pecking in the one corner of that window that afforded a view of me sleeping in bed.
This has been going on for almost two weeks now and it feels like this crazy bird is stalking me. I’ve concluded that it’s not pecking at its reflection, thinking it’s another bird, because it happens at different windows with varied lighting all day. It gives every indication it can see clearly through the glass, seeming to look at me and flying off if I get too close.
I’m not so much interested in methods for making it go away; I’m mainly just curious as to what’s going on. Does anyone have any idea why it’s doing this?
Yeah, I think you should go outside. It should become apparent pretty quickly whether the bird is trying to make friends with you, or whether it’s trying to kill you.
Several years ago, in winter, I was outside working when a bird* showed up and started following me around whenever I was outside.
The first time I was adding stuff to the compost pile and that made sense since there were worms and such for it to pick out of the pile as I was turning it. Another time I was shoveling the driveway and since the ground was covered by snow maybe it thought there might be something uncovered (not realizing that concrete makes a poor habitat for worms).
But then I was also doing other things like pruning which clearly wasn’t going to result in food.
Eventually I didn’t see it again. I figure someone had been hand feeding it and somehow the bird thought I might do the same.
No, I don’t know the species. I have several times come across birds that aren’t in my Peterson’s Field Guide. And Googling, online bird guides, etc. are remarkably unhelpful. It had a pretty black hood but was not at all like a junco or some such.
I consulted the wildlife specialist at the nature center near me, and she says it’s territorial behavior because he’s seeing his reflection. As she explains it, he sees movement in the house, that gets his attention and when he looks closer he sees his reflection and tries to scare off the other bird. She says birds see different wavelengths and so it can see reflections where we might not.
I’m not sure I entirely buy that explanation. I’m usually not moving enough (just sitting at my desk) for it to accidentally see motion in the house from a tree or wherever. And it’s attacking windows from all four sides of the house, on three levels, so it’s not like one area is its territory and where he hangs out until he notices motion in the house.
She’s suggesting that the bird is not concerned with me, only its own reflection. Perhaps it’s not purposefully following me around the house as much as I thought, but it sure seems weird when it’s been at my office window most of the morning and when I go to the kitchen for lunch it’s sitting on the windowsill over the sink.
The wildlife specialist suggested I soap my windows for a few weeks so it can’t see a reflection. That’s too much trouble, as there are a ton of windows on my house. Closing curtains won’t help and can even increase the reflections, she says, and besides, I have a lot of windows with no curtains.
I had a bird incident this week. One flew in my french doors. Somehow I caught in the insanity that was happening due to the cats seeing it. Something’s going on. Maybe these birds are trying to tell us something.
You could try soaping one or two windows in rooms where you spend a lot of time to test whether her hypothesis is correct. If the bird doesn’t peck at the soaped windows because it can’t see its own reflection there, well, it may still be too much trouble and hassle for you to soap all your windows, but at least you’ll be pretty sure about what’s actually causing the problem.
