Northern Georgia. About 2 weeks ago we restocked our bird feeder in the backyard. Birds visit frequently.
One particular bird goes, alternately, from our left side (deck) windows, and our breakfast area back door (mostly glass; near feeder), and flies up and “taps” on the windows.
It is clearly trying to get our attention, but don’t know why. I’ve put out some additional feed on the deck railing hear that set of windows, but it continues.
Any ideas? I don’t want it to injure itself.
I did a quick look in online guides but I can’t identify the bird. It isn’t colorful like it might have been a pet (parakeet, etc). It is:
grey/blue-grey back, wingtops, back of head
white-ish belly/underside
a bit of a “stick-out” on the back of the head, like a jay would have
Hmm. You could be right. None of the windows involved have screens. But I should add that it can perch right next to the window; it does not peck at that point; rather, it flies up about two feet then pecks.
It’s a Tufted Titmouse. (Don’t snicker. That’s it’s actual name.:))
It’s breeding season. It’s trying to attack and chase away the other Titmouse it sees in the glass. It flies up to try to attack the other bird from above, but gets faked out when the other bird does the exact same thing! :mad::mad::mad:
It doesn’t care about your presence. It probably attacks the other bird even when you’re nowhere around.
I’ve heard suggestions involving the fake cobwebs you can get around Halloween. Even one or two unspooled cotton balls will create the same effect. Birds don’t wanna get tangled in sticky spiderwebs and avoid them.
A robin was assaulting my window at work. A cut out Morris from a bag of cat food and taped it to the window. He quit hitting the window. I could have used a blank piece of paper for that matter, but I wanted to do it with flair.
The Mrs. informed me that, at times, it will actually perch on one of the screened windows and also exhibit the behavior, which seems especially odd since the screen cuts out so much reflection.
But I added back the screens to the three deck windows, and that seems to have helped a lot. I also set a folded chair against the mostly-glass back door, and that has helped as well.
We are getting the same thing (I don’t know what species it is). He is trying several different windows in the house. He is not dive bombing them. He gets close, then flutters up into the glass.
If he’s still seeing enough reflection through the screen to think there’s another bird there he’ll continue to exhibit this behavior.
Even the most intelligent of birds won’t reliably figure out a reflection is not another bird, and while titmouse’s are cute as the dickens they are not the most intelligent of birds. Birds - of any intelligence - NEVER understand that window glass is a solid, or
that they can’t fly into a mirror’s reflection.
