Bird Table News

The master of restraint and forward planning when it comes to finding food is the mistle thrush.

This is the UK’s largest thrush and in early autumn birds gather in large flocks to feed together. 

But as soon as holly berries appear, they will split off on their own or into pairs and get defensive. Each bird or pair will find itself a holly tree or bush teeming with berries and will set up a territory. 

The berries on that tree won’t be eaten, but will be guarded with such care that no other birds can take them either. Mistle thrushes are so good at protecting their trees, just in case, that by spring many will still have their full crop of berries untouched, long after any unprotected holly has had its fruit stripped.

So, if you see a holly tree that’s still full of berries at Christmas, you’ll probably find there’s a mistle thrush nearby keeping out a watchful eye for thieves.

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It’s not a case of sharing the berries is it?  It’s ‘what’s mine is mine.  Keep away’

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A note from Gillian

Hi Tricia, We got a camera bird box a company and frankly we were very disappointed. We did not get any visitors to the box, there was no footage and the box then fell apart within the first year.

We then bought a Handykam.com camera bird boxand we were stunned with the quality. The birds use it every week, managed to see a brood and look forward to next year. May be a good idea to do a review of their boxes. Thanks Trish from Gillian

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Gillian,  How wonderful for you.  It must be a lovely thing to see.

Strangely I wrote about the handykam nest box in 2010!!!!.  It’s good to see the company are still making high quality products, but I may do another post about them now I know they are still good products

 http://birdtablenews.com/2010/04/handykam-nest-box/

Click the link to take a look

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I have a blue tit that keeps craching into a window.

I’m sure it’s to do with reflection.

I have a demented juvenile blue tit crashing between my bathroom (frosted) window and my neighbour’s identical bathroom window (about 3 yards away) directly opposite like a ping pong ball! Starts at about 0630 every morning (it’s now September) and goes on intermittently throughout the day. Silence (relief) at night.

Been going on now for nearly a fortnight. Tried all your suggestions without any luck. Thinking of fitting cardboard on the outside the window – to block all reflection. Hopefully it should stop him ‘attacking’ himself. We’ll see…

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What amazes me is how the blue tits survive.  They must hurt themselves crashing into glass, yet they don’t stop.  I’ve tried to find out more, but cannot.  I wonder – is the blue tit different in some way to all the other wild birds?

As they only fly into glass I suppose the only way is to put something over the glass window and make it so the blue tit cannot see any glass, but that is easier said than done.

I hope it stops soon.  It must be upsetting seeing it happen

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Hello,  A blue tit hovers at my window and at the back door window landing on the door handle lots of times a day .

There doesnt seem to be any insects about ,I am worried it will tire its self out poor thing . the blind in my window is often closed when it does this so its not reflection any advice

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Hi Maureen,  I will read through my other notes, but these links may help if you read through them.  I wonder if the last link may help you most – that the bird does not see the glass but can see insects.  I know you said that you can’t see any insects, but maybe there are some there.

http://birdtablenews.com/2011/04/distresed-blue-tits-flying-into-the-windows/

http://birdtablenews.com/2011/04/stopping-blue-tits-flying-into-windows/

http://birdtablenews.com/2011/06/another-reason-why-blue-tits-fly-into-glass-windows/

Hope the above helps.  When I first wrote about this, I thought that it would be one lone Blue Tit.  I was wrong and it happens in different places at different times.  It must be something inherent in the Blue Tit that it sees or instincively does.  Strange.

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Andy has given this plausible explanation

I can tell you that Blue Tits are not “attacking” their reflections or trying to fly to a point they believe to be beyond the glass.

Watch closely and you will notice the window will have spiders, flies and other titbits nestling in corners and crevices (some crossing the glass). The Tits will ‘hover’, like humming birds and dart in to snatch the tasty morsel for the youngsters.

I have a climbing rose to one side of the window and a hanging basket at the other, they use these as launching points and rarely ‘crash’ into the glass.

Occasionally a young bird may get too enthusiastic to grab his/her first snack but soon learns to take the more measured method of snacking.
If you want to help your Tit family picnics, provide a climber or other ‘perching point’ and get the joy of watching their antics from the comfort of your armchair.

We have three families in our boxes this year, with no mishaps.
Happy  watching.
Andy.

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This explanation gives a course of action that we could take to stop it happening.  .  We could put a hanging basket near the window, or put some sort of perch near the window.  This would stop the bird having to fly at the window from a long way off.

So this explanation means the birds just see the insect and not the glass window and fly toward the insect to catch a meal and hit glass.

Hope this helps someone in the future.  I know that people find it distressing when birds continuously fly at windows.  Let me know if it helps you.

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Have had a few questions about how to stop Blue tits continuously flying into windows and hurting themselves.  The links to the earlier posts are at the bottom of this article. 

I’d like to say that birds see light slightly different to us, in a wider spectrum, so the blue tits t might be seeing things in the reflection that we cannot see.

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Here are two readers who have had success in stopping the blue tits flying into windows. 

LIGHTER MORNINGS STOPPING THE BLUE TIT ATTACKING WINDOW 

Hi,  Just to update that blue tit stopped appearing every morning and has now disappeared.

The dawn chorus getting earlier and the lighter mornings did seem to mark a bit of a turning point which is odd as we were being woken at about 05.30h and that was getting annoying and then it just stopped. I am pleased, but still a bit intrigued, as all the other comments above seem to be….

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CLING FILM STOPPING BLUE TITS FLYING INTO WINDOW

Instant success with cling film. Had to do window next to it as well but he has now stopped altogether! Thanks everyone.

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OTHER WAYS TO STOP BLUE TITS FLYING INTO WINDOWS

1. If its attacking its reflection, put a couple of strips of masking tape on the inside of the glass, this might deter the  blue tit. Just something to make it look less like transparant glass.
2.  Try drawing the outline of a bird of prey on some paper, cut it out and stick it on the glass. I’ve  never tried this but i have read that it works. A large enough picture or photo might work but try and get as close to actual size as possible.  If it does work remember to remove it after the Blue Tit has ceased. Otherwise you might not see another bird anywhere near.
3. If it’s while he’s feeling territorial during the breeding season, is there no way you can put a blind or other covering on the outside of the window at the times the sun’s shining on it? A pain in practice, but may work. Obviously not an option on upstairs windows.

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This is the start of the questions in 2010   

http://birdtablenews.com/2010/04/distressed-blue-tit-continuously-flying-into-a-glass-window/

http://birdtablenews.com/2011/04/distresed-blue-tits-flying-into-the-windows/

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I really hope that this is the end of hearing about blue tits continuously  flying into windows.

It seems to me it must be something to do with the light.  The lighter mornings seem to have stopped one blue tit and cling film has helped as well.  But why Blue tits only do this on certain windows is a mystery.  I feel it could be that they do see things differently to us – but we will never know.

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Hello, have just seen this thread after googling this issue. We have within the last year built an extension to the rear of our bungalow and since mid March we have been having, initially, blue tits, flying at the windows and pecking at them. We were baffled at why they would do this as prior to the extension being built we did not have this problem. After a couple of weeks the blue tits stopped and now we have the larger great tits doing the same at a larger conservatory window. We believe after much brain racking that the birds used to nest in an area where our extension now sits. The blue tits nested close to the window they were attacking and likewise with the great tits. Could anyone clarify if this is a likely reason why the birds are flying at our windows? Len Rendell

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Could you keep the curtains closed.  Do you have any window stickers ?

I heard of one bird trying to get at some putty that was in a window. Are
yours plastic window frames.

 A pal gave this reason  Birds attack shiny surfaces
because they see their own reflections.

With windows the bird sees a reflection of the outside – maybe trees, sky and another bird (which is in fact itself) 

Your blue tit maybe has mistaken its own reflection for a competitor for its own  mate or for the area of land where your bluetit lives.  So it thinks it is defending its own territory against an intruder.
It could damage itself,but it is also a waste of energy.   The ‘reflected bird’ will always be behind the glass of course, so your blue tit can’t win

maybe some type of cover partly covering the oustide of the window. 

A  Suggestion has come my way that if you use cling film on the window that stops the reflection,    Once you stop the reflection  then the  the birds automatic behaviour stops

It also seems that some birds attack different windows depending on where
the sun is reflecting on the window.

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I know this is a repitition of what has been saidbefore.  Please let me know if you know of other reasons for this strange behaviour

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Thank you Garth for sending this interesting information

Here in west Worcestershire the swallows have had a good season in my parish, and the adjoining ones.

 I managed to ring broods in 55 nests, some of which were double brooded, giving a total of 238 juveniles.

I also had a good return of ringed birds from last year, 10 out of this years catch of 43 and was my best average for returning adults.

The average brood was 4.2 and I kept records for the BTO on 35 pairs.
We have just returned from a HF holiday near Malham where there seemed to be no shortage of swallows and one had used a nest I found in a passagway.

A very interesting find was at Bolton Castle, where on Wed 8th Sept I noticed a nest in a stairway still with young, and enjoyed watching the adults coping with all the visitors using the stairs. If there were people under the nest they just sat on a light lower down and waited for them to move away.

As the daylight shortens their inbuilt desire to move south will take over, with them taking two months to fly to South Africa, then stay two months before they return to give us more pleasure next spring.

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I didn’t realise that swallows take two months to fly to South Africa.  What inbuilt knowledge they have.

Thanks for sending this.  It must be wonderful to ring swallows.  Is it difficult?

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