Maine Outdoor Journal

Despite west to northwest winds for most of the night, few birds were on the move last night. Perhaps the cloud cover was too extensive, or perhaps the winds were just too strong. Regardless, I was still surprised to see just how light last night’s flight was, as evidenced by the 10:00pm and 2:00am radar images:




Not surprisingly, therefore, there was not a whole lot going on Sandy Point, despite very favorable winds. Here’s the tally, for what its worth:
Yellow-rumped Warbler: 16
Palm Warbler: 13
White-throated Sparrow: 12
American Robin: 5
Unidentified: 5
Song Sparrow: 4
Dark-eyed Junco: 4
Blue Jay: 3
Common Loon: 2
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker: 2
Black-throated Green Warbler: 2
Blackpoll Warbler: 2
White-crowned Sparrow: 2
Osprey: 1
Northern Parula: 1

With a little extra time to kill before a meeting, I took a walk at the Cousin’s River Trail, a Freeport Conservation Trust property that begins at the Freeport Y and heads down to the Royal River. While the woods were quiet, the river’s edge was more productive, with a single Hooded Merganser, one Greater Yellowlegs, and a somewhat tardy Spotted Sandpiper.

Strong northwesterly winds continued throughout the day, which should be good for diurnal migrants, especially raptors and waterfowl. Meanwhile, the last few storm systems, featuring large, broad areas of low pressure and sweeping cold fronts, are part of an excellent pattern for producing rarities – so keep your eyes open!

Moving on, although I can’t find anyway into construing this into something even remotely-bird related, I did want to pass on a link to an excerpt from last night’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” special on the “health care” crisis in this country. It is one of the most well-articulated, passionate, and clearly personal viewpoints that I have heard about the need for reform. Earlier today, I wrote the show a letter – that left me in tears – as I recalled the passing of my father, and how I blame his HMO for his death thanking him for his effort. I’m very concerned that I am more moved by the words of a television personality than I am of any of our so-called “leaders.” Folks, we need to wake up. This isn’t about politics; this is about life and death.

OK, attempting to get back on task here, I am now forwarding a post that I made yesterday to two birding listserves regarding the bird window-strike issue, and some possible solutions, and I thought that I would pass it on here.

“I thought that I would chime in on the window-strike issue thread on New Hampshire Birds, and cc it to Maine-birds in light (pun not intended) of one particular regular poster who clearly has a significant bird-strike issue that should be addressed.

Although this deals primarily with the issue of window strikes on large
buildings, this link from the American Bird Conservancy provides some good background info, and a few links of note, some of which I will revisit later.

The issue of birds striking windows is a serious one. The basic problem is that birds see a reflection of trees or sky on the OUTSIDE surface of typical glass and fly into it at full speed, often resulting in significant injuries and death. In fact, at least one study that I have read suggested that the MAJORITY of birds that strike a window hard enough to be "stunned" but yet seem to "recover," will later die of internal injuries, sometimes slowly and painfully.

In order to prevent this mass mortality, we need to essentially eliminate the reflection on the outside surface of glass. But of course, this is easier said than done!

Two products, Collidescape and Birdscreen are 100% effective, and the links to those companies are on the ABC link above. Collidescape completely eliminates the reflection on the outside surface of glass, and screens and netting (as mentioned in a previous post) will act as a barrier to prevent strikes from occurring.

For new construction, building a window at a slight downward angle - so as to reflect the ground, not something like trees that a bird wants to fly into at full speed - can also solve the problem.

Since most folks won't be rebuilding our windows, or tolerating screens, mesh (although some fine meshes can be surprisingly inconspicuous us), etc., we are left with reducing the problem as much as possible.

Decals are usually the easiest, and one of the cheaper, ways that we address the problem. However, to be completely effective, they would have to cover 100% of the window - which most of us are even less likely to tolerate! But, liberal application of decals spread around the window can be very effective at significantly reducing if not virtually eliminating the problem.

First, decals must be on the OUTSIDE surface of glass, as that is where the problematic reflection is occurring. Secondly, hawk silhouettes are no less effective than any other shape (that is not what a hawk looks like to a bird!). In fact, I usually recommend against the big, black, hawk silhouettes, as they are fairly visually obtrusive to us, and therefore we rarely put more than one silhouette on any given window.

Since birds can see ultraviolet, and we cannot, decals by WindowAlert are often more successful, as being simply opaque (and in some lights, hardly noticeable at all), we can visually tolerate more of them spread out around a window, and therefore reducing a greater percentage of the overall reflected image.

So, when it comes down to it, it's all about breaking up the reflection. For short-term issues, such as a territorial cardinal in the spring, you can rub a bar of soap over the glass to temporarily eliminate the reflection. Decals, streamers, spinning CD's, etc, etc, all can work too - if there are enough of them. At the problematic picture window at our old store, we used a combination of the WindowAlert decals and lines of brightly-colored thread loosely tied to eye-screws at the top and bottom of the window. This solved the problem completely, but we had to be liberal with the application of decals.

Some windows are more problematic than others, with orientation, proximity to trees, etc, and other factors contributing to the issue at some windows and not others. Many folks see an increase in the problem at one time of a year or another, and sometimes this has to do with the angle of the sun at a given season. Sometimes, it's easy enough to apply a bunch of decals to a particular window during the problem period, and then remove some of them during the other seasons.

Another significant issue is the placement of bird feeders. Bird feeders
should be placed WITHIN 3 feet of a window or MORE THAN 25 feet from a window in order to minimize the collision problem. Birds that would fly off of feeders on, or immediately in front of the window, would not have the momentum necessary to do damage to themselves (unfortunately, hunting raptors are still placed at risk). Feeders that are greater than 25 feet (and these various between yards, based on a number of factors) are less likely to concentrate birds in close proximity to the dangerous windows, and they have more time to make a correction for a misguided flight trajectory caused by panic. Simply put, if you are having feeder birds crashing into your windows, your feeders are too close! Of course we want to put feeders where we can easily see them and that is often 10-15 feet away - but that is smack-dab in the middle of the danger zone, and since we are hoping to help birds by feeding them, unsafe placement of feeders is at the very least, counterproductive.

So, that's the issue and a run down of solutions, in as short as a time as I could. I apologize for the length of the post, but this issue is a very significant one, and since there is no one perfect answer, hopefully this will provide enough information to find the solution that works best for you, and your birds.

For more on this issue, and some new research suggesting some potential solutions, take a look at David Sibley’s blog here.