Windows' deadly deception takes toll on birds

SHARON WOOTTON

Thud, reminding me of how we wanted one end of the house full of windows so that we could look on the water, see the ever-changing cloud show, sit in the comfort of the living room and watch the moon move across the southern sky on a cold winter's night.

Thud, delivering guilt on the wings of a pine siskin meeting window pane.

Thud.

Sometimes we check and find nothing.

While a comparable hit on our bodies would have sent us to the doctor or an undertaker, the vast majority of birds bounce off, collect themselves on the deck, sort out a few ruffled feathers and return to the feeder.

Seldom do I have to play undertaker, respectively gathering a little body and taking it into the woods for a quick burial, a useless apology and a heartfelt thanks for it being of the clan that has brought us so much pleasure.

Then there's the bird that falls between those two scenarios, such as the pine siskin that slammed into the window and sat stunned on the chilly deck for several minutes.

Noting a lack of recovery, we found a small empty box with a lid, stuffed in some soft rags for warmth, and headed to the deck (if you have an outdoor cat or dog, don't wait this long).

Slowly approaching the bird, I slipped my fingers under him and put him in among the rags, closed the lid with breathing holes, and brought the box inside.

After 45 minutes of warmth, a few shuffling noises could be heard. Back outside, I took off the lid and set the box on the deck with the again- motionless bird.

He hadn't made his getaway after 30 minutes, so I again slipped my fingers under him and took him out of the box. After a brief one-way conversation, he hopped up my arm to the elbow, then flew away.

Not all collisions end well.

A study by the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology asked Project FeederWatch participants to keep a window-death tally in the 1989-90 feeder season and extrapolated the data to an annual 95 million fatalities in North America.

Some researchers say the numbers are many times higher. Basically, it's an unfathomable number of dead bodies.

Birds fly into windows because they see the reflections of trees and sky in the glass. Startled at a feeder, they may take off toward the window's "open space" and become a thud.

One way to mitigate the problem is to move your feeders farther away from the house, at least 30 feet, or closer, about 5 or 6 feet. Closer to the house means they haven't gotten up to full speed when they hit.

People have tried the logical and the ridiculous to cut down on the problem, including hawk and owl silhouettes on the outside of windows, using screens or newspaper to eliminate the reflection, erecting a lightweight trellis outside the window, covering the window with black plastic bird netting, spraying the most deadly window with artificial snow, hanging cardboard tubes with reflective paper or mounting strips of orange survey tape.

Most of us just learn to live with being a predator, of sorts, and the fact that this is an imperfect world.

And hope that the few birds we might save with our black-oil sunflower seeds during a winter's cold snap might offset the death caused by our windows.

Sharon Wootton is a free-lance writer from Shaw Island. Contact her at songandword@rockisland. com or 360-468-3964.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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