When Birds Attack Windows
Birds Attack Their Own Reflections in Shiny Surfaces
May 29, 2006 Rosemary Drisdelle
A bird is tapping on the window with its beak. Sometimes it is merely pecking at the window; sometimes it seems to be attacking the window. What is going on? In the past, many people took this to be a bad omen foretelling the imminent death of someone in the household. An ancient belief cast birds as the souls of the dead and a bird attacking a window or otherwise trying to enter a house was believed to be the soul of a dead person coming to lead a departing soul into the afterlife. You can read more about souls arriving and leaving in bird form in the Encyclopedia of Myths.
This strange behavior, however, has a less romantic, more scientific explanation. Birds attack shiny surfaces because they see their own reflections. In the case of a window, the bird does not see through the glass: it sees a reflection of the outside, possibly trees and the sky, and another bird of its own species. The real bird does not recognize itself and mistakes the reflected bird for a competitor for territory or mates. It attacks the image in the window, trying to drive the other bird away.
Of course, this is a fruitless exercise. The bird reflection will always be there, forever inaccessible behind an invisible barrier. The real bird often returns many times, compulsively launching itself at the window. If it is very aggressive, it could damage its beak, but most often it just wastes energy and time. Very large birds may break the glass, to the distress of bird and home occupants alike.
If your windows are suffering from the attack of a confused bird and you want to discourage the behavior, the best thing to do is to cover the outside of the window with something. (Don't cover the inside as the covering will probably be invisible behind the mirror that the birds see.) If you don't want to cut out too much light, use an opaque plastic that will let light in but not reflect any image. You can also buy black silhouettes of hawks, or spider web decals (see the photograph and my recent blog entry) to discourage birds from attacking windows or flying into them, but again, if the bird is attacking the window, the decal would probably have to be placed on the outside of the pane.
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