(no subject)

[kradeelav]

the most swole cardinal i've ever seen in my life (this mf is the size of a small chicken) is one territorial bastard and keeps attacking the glass which sounds distantly like the electrical power fluctuating so i have to keep getting up to scare him away lol

i ain't even mad

(downsides to a mostly glass house: this)

Comments

[soemand]

🤣

[kradeelav]

legit got an 'i didn't even know cardinals GOT that big' comment XD

[helicoprion]

I was once told by a team of grad students doing research on songbirds that cardinals were everyone's least favorite thing to catch in the nets, because even if you're just trying to set them free they will bite you hard and often

I wish your local big red fucker a very "stay full of pointless rage" <3

[kradeelav]

ahahaha oh my gosh i love you told me this! i always thought blue jays would be quite mean when netted but could absolutely see cardinals being incorrigible biters too!! <3

[helicoprion]

Okay so, HILARIOUSLY, the day my class made this field trip out to where they were netting little guys, there was in fact a blue jay in there. The researchers were like "how the hell did it even get stuck here, it's too big for this net and they're supposed to be smarter than that???" So they got it out and it took the whole thing super calmly, was not aggressive at all, let the researchers manhandle it a bit to show everyone its gorgeous wing feathers. It would try to escape whenever a person changed their grip or handed it to someone else, but in between times it seemed like it was just patiently waiting for its next opportunity. I would say that it seemed like a very clever bird, except how did it even get stuck in a net sized for sparrows in the first place ....

[synecdoches]

we mostly have chickadees this time of year, and while they do not attack the glass (possibly due to bird safety measures i put up a couple summers ago) the ckickadees DO peck aggressively at our window screens trying to fish dead bugs out of there

[kradeelav]

ohhh that's so smart with the glass deterrent for the birds; i'll have to look into that for the new place since we're about to move soon (and it'll also have a lot of glass).

love seeing how clever birds are tbh!

[synecdoches]

ah, i have some suggestions, then! the main thing with birds is disrupting the reflection of the glass. decals or deterrents inside the glass won't help them; it has to be on the outside.

if you have full-length window screens, so there's screen covering the entire outer surface of the glass, you may not need to do anything. it will disrupt the reflection enough. this type of screen is common on double-hung windows, which open from both the top and the bottom.

my setup is similar to BirdSavers: strings of paracord that hang in front of the non-screened portion of the windows, a few inches apart. they blow gently in the wind and make a bit of noise, which we had to get used to. in order to put these up, i did have to put 2 screws in each exterior window frame, so it may not be an option for renting. sometimes birds still hover curiously by the window, but i haven't had any impacts since putting them up. (so this might not solve the cardinal fighting with himself. haha)

window decals are probably the simplest and most renter-friendly option i know of. there are tons of different styles & sellers. as long as you put the decals on the outside of the window, it will work. i would anticipate this would need to be replaced eventually, since it will be exposed to the elements. window paint would also work, but would have a shorter lifespan than the decals and might wash off in rain.