apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The Chase building has them downtown. They have ones that look like black ravens on each of the double story windows fronting onto Chase Manhattan plaza.

On a related note, this Spring I've had to deal with an aggressive robin who was constantly attacking our windows all day, as he thinks his reflection is a rival. This behavior will hopefully end soon after he finds a mate, but in the meantime we've found that the only thing that worked was to hang netting across the windows. Not exactly a 365 day solution, however. But here's a good website I found with suggestions on how to deal with my problem as well as window strikes in general. There are also some links at the bottom for window clings like the ones you have pictured.

http://www.sialis.org/windowstrikes.htm

In Austria, there are black ones all over all the plexi-glass sound walls along the train routes and highways.

They look a lot like these, which are €9,95 for 8, although this company only ships within Europe.

For the US, I found these, which are $9.99 for 5.

Maybe it's just Darwin's natural selection to weed out the dumb birds?

Thanks, Annegret, good website.

Birds can recognize silhouettes of other predatory birds, on the fly. So what you need is something that has the silhouette of a falcon, owl, raven, shrike etc. Not other songbirds like the ones pictured. Seems like those would just be an invitation to drop in for a visit. For the right shapes, check out a guidebook for birdwatchers -- they also train to recognize silhouettes as field marks. Cut as many as you like from dark paper, tape to windows. Good job for your kids.

My family has their story of when birds used to come crashing through the huge picture window in the living room in the summer time. It took my grandmother 2 years to realize the reason birds would fly into the window was because the house was painted sky blue... the birds didn't realize it was a house since it kind of matched the sky. As soon as my grandparents painted the house a dark brown, they never had to deal with birds flying into windows again.

I definitely need these!

I cut out the silhouette of an F-14 and put it in my big front window. It cut down on the number of birdstrikes there, as well as kept away enemy fighters.

When I was growing up, we always had problems with birds flying into the picture window and the storm doors at our house. Every season, my mom and I would cut out some shapes out of colorful paper to hang on the windows. It seemed to be enough to let the birds know there was something there.

Thank you for this post!

Rapidtransitman, you made my day. Great post.

Clean windows reflect the sky and are confusing to birds, so one solution is let them stay dirty! ;^)

I haven't heard one way or the other, but I wonder if things like wind chimes and mobiles, with motion, hanging near windows would help?

I bought some leaf-shaped translucent decals at drsfosterandsmith.com. They're a little less invisible than the picture shows -- kinda frosty/blurry -- but they're not too ugly, and I haven't had a dead finch since I put them up. They claim to reflect UV light, which birds can see.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=9089 9122 13244&pcatid=13244

Sorry, let me try it another way:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=13244&prodid=32187&catid=21

At the bird sanctuary in my city they suggested hanging feathers in the windows. Feathers are a sign of danger to the birds, therefore they avoid feathery places. I was inspired to make some feather guards out of recycled billboard vinyl. I posted a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNECiFYUQhE