On Friday, I received a call to the Master Gardener Volunteer Hotline from a local person. They shared that they had a robin that had been attacking and hitting their house window since Easter weekend. They wanted to know what to do. The customer shared that the bird was crashing into the so hard that it would sit in the yard dazed and confused. After some research, I would some related information from different Extension Experts. I will share information from Chuck Otte, Geary County, Pennsylvania Extension Agent on an article he shared in 2020.
About this time of year is when we receive calls about birds attacking house windows. This is very different than the occasional bird flying into a window. We see that all winter long. Birds are startled and don’t realize that the reflection of the outdoors in the window is not a continuation of the outdoors. They fly right into it. Sometimes they fly right away, sometimes they fall to the ground stunned and sometimes they break their necks and never fly again. This is a big problem by the way. It’s estimated that 200 million birds die from window collisions in the USA and Canada annually. That’s a lot of birds but a drop in the bucket compared to the 2.6 billion that cats kill annually. Continue reading