Cycling UK Forum

Blackbirds nest every year in our garden, but they are territorial and it's never more than one pair. For the last few days, a female blackbird has been attacking her own reflection in one of our windows. This is a constant and vigorous fight and she only reluctantly retreats even if I stand directly inside the window, which is increasing covered in muddy beakprints. As I type this, there's a rattle on the window every five to ten seconds and that goes on all day. I presume this instinctive behaviour will go on until she's totally exhausted or dead.

Although we get birds hitting windows accidentally, and titmice find something to eat in the edges of the window frames, we've never had a bird persistantly attacking its own reflection before.

Your windows must be cleaner than mine.

It doesn't happen very often - not at our house. If it did, many gardens would be littered with dead birds daily. I think birds in general have learnt to recognise what a sheet of glass is. In a similar way, crows and magpies, pecking away at roadkill on the motorway, have come to learn that one side of the white line separating hard shoulder and carriageway spells danger, the other side, safety.

Of course, there's always going to be the odd bird that gets it wrong.

Just like some humans...

We heard an almighty bang from downstairs in the middle of the night a few years ago. I went down to investigate and found a perfect imprint of an owl on one of the windows. It looked like it had been drawn in dust (which I think comes off the feathers). I don't know if it was attacking something or just a navigational error but the results looked very impressive. We didn't clean the window for weeks

thirdcrank wrote: I presume this instinctive behaviour will go on until she's totally exhausted or dead.

If you put a sheet of cardboard/newspaper/ one smear of windolene/ a cut out of a hawk etc etc over the spot where she is seeing her reflection it may stop it happening. Then she might survive to bring up some new little songsters to brighten your spring garden days.

It's unusual that it is a female I think, the males are often the territory holders.

If you change the outside surface, she will stop attacking the window. Something simple, like a few reusable stickers (let the grandkids decorate it?) may do the trick. Otherwise, you can buy stickers that have bird-of-prey outlines, like hawks or falcons. Those will certainly keep the blackbird off the windows.

Mr Blackbird, having spent the Winter eating the berries on the hedge and more recently scavenging under the bird feeder is now demonstrating that it's not only the early bird that catches the worm. He's ignoring the window attacks. I may try the raptor-on-the-glass approach, but the threat posed by YOS standing immediately inside the window is no deterrent.

My only concern here is a probably bourgeois fear for the health of the bird. Although we were not the first people to live in this house, we moved in only a couple of years after it was built. My M-I-L who hailed from what was then a leafy part of Hertfordshire remarked on the absence of birdsong. The spikey hedge we planted to deter intruders is now home to lots of birds, which are also attracted by various nesting boxes and sunflower seeds etc.

thirdcrank wrote:I may try the raptor-on-the-glass approach, but the threat posed by YOS standing immediately inside the window is no deterrent.

Needs to be on the outside. Even my cat can't see through the glass unless the light's on.
(I think they focus on the reflection rather than trying to see through the glass into the murky room...)

A couple of years ago,Mrs R2 and I spent a happy ten minutes or so on the Lancaster canal at Hest Bank watching a Canada Goose appearing to talk to it's own reflection and cocking it's head to one side in a comical fashion,much like a dog does, in the porthole of a narrowboat .

BTW off on a tangent,I saw the biggest flock of about 50to70 Fieldfares today, that I've seen this winter,the most upto now have been 10 in number and had assumed the reason was how mild it had been,despite the bumper crop of berries in the hedgerows.

BTW off on a tangent,I saw the biggest flock of about 50to70 Fieldfares today, that I've seen this winter,the most upto now have been 10 in number and had assumed the reason was how mild it had been,despite the bumper crop of berries in the hedgerows.

I think there are a few less but mostly they are much more dispersed because there is so much food around. A big flock might mean they're starting to think about going home (the most I've ever seen in one sitting was hundreds strong heading eastwards through Cambridgeshire, probably around this time of year)

CliveyT wrote:
I think there are a few less but mostly they are much more dispersed because there is so much food around.

I hadn't thought of that,you could well be right.

A big flock might mean they're starting to think about going home (the most I've ever seen in one sitting was hundreds strong heading eastwards through Cambridgeshire, probably around this time of year)

I was thinking about that today as we passed a bush full of red berries.
I'd imagine they'd travel much faster and safer in bigger numbers,though I've never seen a flock bigger than around 100 strong.