Hi Paul,

It certainly sounds like he's attacking a reflection.

I don't have a tried and true way to solve the problem, but here's something
I heard that might work:

I work on a seabird colony during the summer, and we have blinds with very
reflective glass so that we can observe the seabirds without spooking them.
It hasn't happened while I was there yet, but my advisor talks about past
years when the local sparrows would do the same thing to those windows. She
tells me that if you give the glass a short tap *just* as the sparrow is
about to make contact with the window, it scares the bird into thinking that
his reflection is just a tiny bit more aggressive than he is. Apparently
that is usually enough to convince the bird that this territory is taken,
and he should try elsewhere.

Since I haven't gotten a chance to try it out, I can't say for sure how well
it works. We had a Robin flying into our windows last spring, but everytime
I would sit near the windows to try this, the Robin would get wary, and find
a different window to attack.

It might be a long shot, but it's worth a try...

-Michael Schrimpf
Seattle

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 1:59 PM, <pzfree-nature at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi Tweets,
>
> I am hoping someone might have an explanation for me..
>
> I have a home office and hanging right outside my window are three bird
> feeders. They are 4-5 feet from where I sit and have been there for about a
> year and a half now.
>
> There are flocks of both chestnut backed and black capped chickadees that
> feed on the sunflower seeds and the suet. There are Juncos, Towhees,
> Nuthatches the occasional House Finch and a few Song Sparrows. About a week
> ago, I noticed a song sparrow hopping around in a bush in kind of a circular
> fashion and he was fluttering his wings. I looked up in the Bird
> Behavior handbook and identified this as male courting behavior. Seems a
> bit early but it has been warm... There was a female perched on a branch of
> my apple tree close by watching attentitively.
>
> After that day, the bird began to land on the window sill and look into the
> house. He would also peck on the glass a bit and fly up and down pecking on
> the glass. I opened the window and the bird flew into my office about 3
> feet, turned around and flew back out. He did this 4-5 times over an hour.
> I closed the window and sure enough he started fluttering at the window
> again.
>
> He feeds on the higher feeder and then flutters to the window and
> pecks/flutters up and down. My windows are a mess with smeared bird
> saliva/suet/whatever. He flies at the window from dawn to dusk hundreds of
> times per day for almost a week now.
>
> He appears to be looking into the room when he does it and not looking at
> his own reflection which might be trying to drive another male bird away. I
> would think the angle of light would make him not reflective at some times
> so this also discounts the rival theory, I think...
>
> The poor guy must be totally worn out from this game. I remember him doing
> this last year too but not quite to this extent.
>
> Anyone help educate me on this behavior?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Paul Zoba
> Woodinville
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tweeters mailing list
> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
>
>


--
Michael Schrimpf
Graduate Student
School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences
University of Washington
Box 355020
Seattle, WA 98195-5020
Tel: 206-221-6904
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