Bird strikes and house damage can be avoided

This is the time of year when most birds are in a big hurry. The males are setting up territories for their lady-friends when they arrive for the nesting season, and heaven help another male that gets in the way! Robins are notorious about this business of territorial battles.

Time after time, I receive phone calls from Sisters' area residents who have a male robin bashing himself to pieces against a large living room window. All he's usually doing is fighting himself.

In the frenzy to reproduce, male birds make absolute fools of themselves (Hmmmm, sounds familiar...). Once the eggs have hatched the need to feed those gaping mouths becomes paramount. That's when the "early bird" comes out in momma and poppa robin, and when the parents have a good catch, they'll head for home the quickest way. If they look toward the nest and see a clear course though a house, they'll take it, with no idea that there are (at least) two thick panes of glass to go through.

Take the case of a dove at Black Butte Ranch:

The photo above that Bill Benson sent a while back shows just how much force is sometimes involved with window strikes. That poor dove must have been going at least 40 mph to leave such an imprint. Oh, if you're wondering about the fate of the dove? It didn't make it; Bill found it dead under the window.

Some people pull the blinds on a window that has become a threat to birds. That will help prevent bird strikes, yes, but it usually doesn't work to stop a robin from fighting itself. Once that poor, misguided guy gets it in his noggin that the robin he's fighting won't go away, he can't stop. Unfortunately, it can reach a pitch where the bird actually kills itself by striking the window over and over. The only way to put a stop to it (that I know of) is to place a cloth on the outside of the window so he can no longer see the refection of his theoretical competitor.

Try putting up a silhouette of a predator such as a falcon on your window.

In most cases, placing life-sized copies on the inside of a window will stop birds from slamming into them. This is especially necessary when there are two large see-thru windows on each side of the house, opposite one another.

I have placed a bunch of these life-sized silhouettes in a tray at The Nugget office, if you want one or two, please help yourself - but be frugal, there may be another person that needs one or two as well.

Then there's the problem of woodpeckers using your home for a territorial sounding board. That's usually a northern flicker that doesn't know when to stop.

In the years I have been helping to put an end to this foolishness, I have seen flickers all but destroy the siding of a house, especially board-and-batten construction. Just the other day I received a call from a homeowner near Sisters High School who had a male white-headed woodpecker really doing a number on her home.

The male actually made a hole in the siding and got inside, and within a few moments there was insulation flying in the wind, and the woodpecker probably felt he had died and gone to heaven. What a home he thought he made; insulated even!

Now, white-headed woodpeckers are not just "any old woodpecker." These guys are the frosting on the cake to birders. No kidding, serious birders will fly halfway around the globe and come to Sisters to see these beautiful house-smashing birds.

Obviously the homeowner doesn't give a hoot about how regal these remarkable woodpeckers may be, they just want it to stop. A mixture of butter and lots of cayenne pepper dabbed on the holes will usually put an end to it. And sometimes putting up a nesting box near the home stops it as well.

That's the bottom line for all this unwanted bird contact: put a silhouette on the window you may suspect as a bird-killer as quickly as possible, and place a hot mixture of cayenne as quickly as possible on the damaged area a woodpecker may be starting. In the long run, everyone will be happier.