We had a bird death today in our yard. This is not a completely uncommon occurrence; occasionally feral cats will ambush a mourning dove or two. We try to scare the cats off when we can. However, today's bird death was due to our front window. We've had some bird strikes before, but the birds are usually just dazed and fly off again after recovering.
My husband heard it and went outside- he found it on one of our front porch camp chairs. It was apparent that the bird, a beautiful female cardinal, was not going to make it. I couldn't stay to watch it perish, so I went back inside.
Later on, I went out to see what about that window makes it a hazard to birds. It's extremely reflective today- I don't know that this is the case on sunny days, maybe just the rainy ones. I decided to make some bird silhouettes for the window to prevent the strikes. They were hard to see, so I looked up some other products. One is called CollidEscape, and it's a vinyl material with holes in it that you apply to the window. It provides privacy for you, reduces energy costs, and helps the birds 'see' the window. You can see out just fine.
I have run into a dilemma- the stuff blocks sunlight, and that window is where most of our houseplants reside. So do I buy some and save the (few) birds that hit the window, or just go with the silhouettes and hope that works enough?
