Bird and window collisions may have been a major source of avian mortality according to the Audubon Society. One primary cause for such bird strikes that resulted in avian mortality is reflection on windows. Startled or confused birds may have mistaken the window reflection as the real blue sky, made a dash for cover and killed themselves instead when they flew into glass windows or doors.
What are the reasons that cause the birds to fly into the windows?
There is often a pattern behind frequent bird strikes or birds and windows collisions. Such bird strikes may be repeatedly happening to the same windows of your house and perhaps only during certain periods of the year such as their breeding season. Hence, sometimes you may only need to tack up a temporary cover – a piece of netting, cloth or solid material on the outside of your windows to deter the birds and break their silly habit.
It might also be the position of water source or hanging plants you have by your windows that may be causing such frequent bird strikes. Thus, simply remove these sources to deter the bird strikes. Observing and paying attention to the bird behaviors is crucial to discover their suicidal pattern before you decide the best solution to avoid bird and window collisions. Besides the ones mentioned above, here are some other reasons and more ways to help you reduce bird and window collisions in your home:
Reduce window reflection
Windows that always reflect the sky, clouds or trees have a high tendency to give birds the mistaken impression that they are flying into open air resulting in injuries or death. If your home has such windows, you may wish to place a shade cloth or a screen over such windows to prevent more tragedies from happening. Window shade cloth is actually a piece of plastic mesh that allows you to still be able to see through your window of the view outside, yet prevent the windows from having reflections. Otherwise, if your windows have shades or blinds, turn them such that they are closed slightly to reduce reflection. White shears will also work at reducing reflection while allowing you to be able to see through the windows.
Use window shades to block ‘through-house’ line of sight
If your home has windows that are oriented such that there is a clear view through your house to another window on the opposite side looking to the outside of your house, you may potentially have a bird and window collision hazardous spot. This ‘through-house’ line of sight to the outdoors may be seen as a flight path for the birds. You can simply change this potential flight path by putting up window shades on the windows to break the open view or the impression that the bird can fly right through. If you already have window shades, just lower the shades on the opposing window and you will not see any more window strikes.
Window decals
There are many different window decals now in the market that are easy to apply to your windows which will help to prevent bird and window collision. The most common ones are those in the outline of a hawk silhouette or spider web. These may be effective but some people are still skeptical if such static images really do make a difference in reducing such bird strikes.
If you are one of the skeptics, you may want to make non-static, swinging hawk silhouette by hanging a paper hawk silhouette (easily printable from online websites) then tie it with clear fishing line to a suction cup from the top of the window exterior. As the hawk simulation swings in the wind, it may deter smaller birds from striking your windows.
Similar to window decals pasted to the windows exterior, some home users prefer to purchase transparent film that allow ample natural light to pass through into the house yet will help to reduce the reflectivity of the window exteriors and transparency of the windows.
