on the windows. There are all sorts of bird-deflector decals on the Internet; just google "spider web decal birds" or something similar and you'll get lots of hits.
but the idea is to get LESS hits... :-) Mark
You may be on a migratory path that varies slightly from year to year. If that's true, then the hits should be primarily on the south side of the house as birds fly north for the summer. You can try "bird tape" or let your windows get dirty. Birds fly into them because they see the reflection of trees and sky in them and think they can fly into the reflected image.
The bird tape looks just about as bad as letting the windows get dusty enough to make the reflection not quite as vivid. I know people who've tried hawk silhouettes and all sorts of other tricks, but if you're on a migratory path, not much will help until they've all passed by.
Crashes usually slow down quite a bit after nesting/migration season ends.
There's another possibility. Depending on the type of bird it could simply be a territorial thing, especially with cardinals and robins. They perceive their reflection as a hostile intruder and fly directly at it in an aerial game of chicken, veering off at the last moment and crashing into the glass. From what you've described about them flying around to different windows, this seems more likely to be what's happening to you. It used to be a problem here until I had Andersen windows installed because they have a one-piece screen on the *outside* of the window that dulls the reflectivity of the window.
Still, I hear a "thwack" every now and then, but they usually recover from a smash into the softer screen. They're not very smart little creatures, hence the phrase "bird brain."
When the idiot neighbor kids were playing softball with a golf ball, it dimpled the screen but didn't crack *my* window although they did shatter my neighbor's big bay window. Replacing a pop-in screen is sure a lot easier than replacing a shattered double-hung window. I made the kid's dad pay for the repair because my CCTV cameras captured it all to disk. (-:
Good luck.
OT, but what the heck. . They said most dogs had a hard time watching tv but the recent LED (or LCD or something) TVs are easier for them to see.
I had this issue with humming birds, decades ago, but only in one room in the house. There were two large windows, facing each other, at opposite sides of the room, so I suppose the glass was invisible to them and they were trying tunnel through the room. Opening the windows was not an option, as we rely on air-conditioning for most of the year. Our cats would sit outside and grab the stunned birds. In your case, it looks like the birds are guarding their territory by fighting their reflections in the glass. I've seen this with a Great Kiskadee on my car window. The bird would spend hours trying to kill its "rival", and eventually became weak with the battle, it preferred fight over feed.
I went to a Humane Society "open house" with some kids, and they actually were selling those bird silhouettes, and they were shaped like a hawk. They claimed they work. They were cheap, so it was no big money maker, thus I tend to think they do work.
I've never had this problem, so I could not try them.
Yet, the first website below says they dont work????
All you can do is experiment. Check out these sites.
Look here:
There are more sites, lots of them.... Search Google enter: "bird silhouette" AND/OR "stop birds from hitting windows"
Personal note: I had a problem with woodpeckers making holes in my wooden horse shelter walls. I tied a bunch of aluminum soda or beer cans to plastic baling twine, put some nails along the edge of the roof, and tied the cans to the nails. Have not had any woodpeckers since.
(Poke hole in side of can near the pop top, run twine thru the pop top and that hole to tie it to can, after doing several of them and having trouble getting twine thru the holes, I made loops on the can with baling wire, twisted it, then tied the twine to those loops).
The cans are a bit noisy, but you get used to it!
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