Another Blackbird hits the window

Silly XX bird

Heard a thump this A.M. thought it was my husband in the shower.

Just been around the garden, and found Mrs Blackbird, dead, with what
appears to be a broken beak, so she must have hit the conservatory
with a hell of a thump. Hope all her babies have fledged, she appeared
to have been making babies for quite some time, and maybe hubby will find
a new mate.

 

How sad...thought birds had some kind of radar...or is that just bats?

 

she was probably getting chased by a sparrow hawk , I have had to stop feeding as one cottoned to all the birds feeding

 

I love clean windows but I hate them for this very reason (that's a bit double Dutch! ) . It's normally pigeons who hit the windows here, they leave such a filthy mark on the glass & generally just fly off!

 

Ouch! Do they fly off with a corrugated beak?

 

I never thought of that, I've found a number of dead birds beside the greenhouse...... I thought we must have a wild cat or something and have had to remove dead bodies from the garden before Tess has had chance to eat them

 

I'm not sure @rosebay, I guess they have a headache! Honestly the thump can really make me jump sometimes

 

I don't feed the birds at all, they get what they can find in my garden.

I have quite enclosed garden, so don't get much in the way of predatory things.

Never seen a sparrow hawk, we did have a muntjac deer once, goodness knows
how he/she got in, we have very high fences, and we live in a large town by a busy
road

I am going to brag now, I have only had 10 slugs in my garden this year, now
they will come in their droves, just to prove me wrong

 

We get lots of bird strikes here on the patio doors. My excuse for not keeping them immaculately clean is to "try to prevent strikes"! We do have ornaments to deter strikes, but doesn't help if the birds can see through to the other side (had a huge problem in our last house of birds literally trying to fly through the lounge, as they could see the garden on the other side, when we had the patio door open. Got good at catching them (mainly tits).). the majority of strikes are wood pigeons, which generally fly off, leaving a dust/grease smear on the glass.

 

@liliana you are so lucky not to be invaded with slugs...what's your secret? I'm at war with slugs all the time! The hens help but they only like small slugs! I get a lot of really big ones, I think they come from the farmers field at the back of our house

 

I think I have heard of dangling a compact disc can deter birds (the shininess I guess)...or would that be an eyesore around the windows?

 

I have Clematis netting (plastic stuff) attached all the way round my greenhouse to stop bird deaths. It also serves a purpose for letting the likes of an early crop of Mange Tout to climb. Living in the countryside and having a wood, we have huge number of birds, both native and summer visitors. The greenhouse has been up for 2 years now and fingers crossed no deaths. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the huge window in the sitting room . I don't think Clematis netting over that would look too clever!

 

I guess the clematis netting over the window would make an original feature! . I just don't know what you do to prevent the birds flying into the windows, my uncle has some window stickers on his patio door window for this very reason, I'm not sure I'd particularly like that but I guess it's an option .
I bet your wood is fabulous @silu, do you have a good variety of trees? Nice for the birds too, I'd love to provide a woodland habitat for the birds & there's nothing nicer than a walk through the woods at dawn or dusk .

 

Well @Beckie76 I wouldn't call it fabulous but it is very lovely to have. It's quite small, maybe 100/150 trees all ancient! apart from 12 Larch which I planted about 5 years ago. The wood was bigger but trees have died over the years. A friend who is an arborist reckon the wood was planted in early Victorian times.
There is Scots Pine, Beech, Ash, Larch, Silver Birch, Wild Cherry and Rowan so a very nice mixture. The fallen trees have been keeping our log burner busy for the last 5 years since we installed it. The wood is home to a pair of Buzzards who have been resident since before we came here 13 years ago. They don't bother us at all or the huge number of birds in the garden thank goodness. They keep themselves to themselves tho they get pretty annoyed if we go near their large nest! They certainly saw off a massive Sea Eagle which had eyed up moving here after being released into the wild from a farm close to here.
The wood has a visit from a Wood pecker regularly and is home to all the usual birds you'd expect to find. The only possibly slightly unusual birds we have visiting are White Throats. We also have a fair amount of Goldcrests which I didn't realise are the smallest British birds (thought Wrens were) and Tree Creepers which always make me laugh. Not to sure why, suppose it's because they look quite odd "walking" up trees.
We are up to our necks in House Martins and Swallows atm. Ok they make a huge amount of mess but what the...... they are wonderful to watch and admire their fantastic acrobatics.

 

@silu your wood sounds great & such a lovely variety of trees. You are very fortunate to have such a lot of birds too, I love tree creepers, like you said they are funny when they walk up the side of a tree!
The buzzards sound like real characters, I hadn't realised they were so territorial!
Swallows & house martins are such lovely birds, their acrobatics are amazing, we used to have some here but since we painted the outside of the house they've not been back . every year I hope they will return....hopefully one day