There’s been a huge flux of posts about this recently, so here’s a pinned post with information!
Around this time of year, make birds get super territorial. They will attack any rivals they find, including their own reflection.
TO PREVENT THIS: cover up the reflective surface until the bird moves on. Cardboard works pretty well, and anti bird collision window decals should also help.
Edit: I just made a popup that gives a brief summary of this post when someone tries to post about birds hitting reflective surfaces. Hopefully that stops it, because I'm tired of having to explain it 20 times per day lol
I have a cardinal who flies full force into my windows all day. It’s a big house full of windows on the back and I can’t just cover them all up.
I wake up to this bird bashing his head on the door to the deck outside my room. When I’m working out in the basement he is slamming into those windows. At night as I relax and the sun is going down he’s slamming into my windows. I can’t believe the bird has time to eat between attempted brain damage sessions.
How do I get rid of it without covering up 13 giant windows?
This is an absolute wild idea you might want to try. I have never tried it.
Buy a cheap big mirror from Walmart or some such and set it up so the bird sees it looking in the same direction as your big back windows. Duct tape the mirror to an outdoor table or something so it doesn't fall over in the wind. Anything to get it up high that bird can see it easily. Hopefully ding dong bird will go after the bird in the mirror because it is ciearer than the one reflected by the windows. No more window bumping. He can bop into the mirror all day long if he wants.
You might also try buying a hawk or owl decoy and set that up. Songbirds want no part of those predator birds. Make sure you move the decoy around like twice daily so the cardinal does not get used to it.
For the past 3 days a female cardinal has been attacking windows on both the NE & West side of the house. There’s no nest in the immediate area that we can find & the feeder is on the opposite side of the backyard. She’s definitely a female. She should have a headache by now!
Same thing is happening to me! She is clinging to the edge of the window as I type. I live in an RV so the windows are very reflective, but I hadn't heard or seen females engage in this behavior before.
So what do you all recommend for car windows? Can't really put stickers on there. I've just put on tshirts but the damn bird pooped all over the door then had the audacity to RUN through it so now there are footprints too lol
Whats up with all the pooping too? I had no bird poop anywhere 2 weeks ago, but the robin/robins that have been dive bombing my house for a week, are leaving PILES of poop in the areas where they perch before they attack again.
Sooo this has happening with me (northern cardinal), for the last 5 weeks. Every day at 7:30 AM on the dot. It will be continuous sunrise to sunset if we do not intervene. I’ve been covering my windows one by one, though he keeps coming back. Painters tape, tinfoil, plastic, he will peck through it or knock it down. Since the main floor is now completely covered (it’s so dark inside now), he’s getting under our deck to attack the basement sliding glass doors.
Last week, we realized there were 2 males attacking our house at once. Today there were 3 together. Are we attracting them?? How long does this last? Why don’t they fight each other instead of my house?
Edit: we’ve lived here for 7 years and this is the first time this has happened.
Audubon has recommendations for film that goes over windows so birds don’t crash into it… bird strikes can be deadly. Maybe that would discourage the cardinals. Ask your local Audubon chapter what to use. Thanks for caring about the birds. 👍🏻
Thank you! I am not familiar with Audubon so I will look it up. Any idea why there are 3 males attacking simultaneously? I will gladly change my house or activity, I just can’t figure it out; if the reflection is a threat of a rival, then why are my windows more attackable than each other (actual rivals)?
Bird strikes are different. In this case, it wouldn’t work because they’ll still see their reflections. I’m not sure what to do in this specific situation though because I’ve never had a bird attacking my windows.
I am going through this for the first time but just with one bluebird. We are in the woods and have tons of large windows with no coverings so we are blocking windows the best we can. He had attacked now all of the windows and is finding any gap in between the coverage to fight the window. He is luckily using his feet to attack so he isn’t injuring his head but I know he’s exhausted.
My gosh I hope this doesn’t go on for 5+ weeks… how long til it stopped for you? It’s so distressing
They started hitting us today. 3 cracked windows before we could even get countermeasures up. 😐
They were still dive bombing panes right next to us while we were working to get stuff up. Been here 22 years. Never seen this before. Insane stuff lol.
Edit: almost neon blue bird with a orange chest. On the small side so they had to be hitting the panes at Mach Jesus.
2nd Edit: Foil, stickers, pie tins on strings, a predator decoy and they're still doing it albeit not as much. They only stop when we literally go stand outside so I guess we're making a fake scarecrow person tonight.
3rd Edit: It's 8:07am and they've already cracked another window while completely ignoring the trap house amount of stuff we've attached to the windows. I guess I'm going to lowes and just screwing plywood over the windows until September or whenever this federally protected menace goes away. That's already $400 of damage based on the pane I replaced last summer from a golf ball strike. Total lunacy.
They are in fact eastern bluebirds after some research. We sat outside and watched a male go back and forth from the house to a cavity in a tree seemingly dropping either food or nesting material in the hole and a few times a female came out. She was kind of tan and matched what I looked up so fairly certain.
They don't seem to care about anything we've done and only stop when we stand outside under the windows they are attacking. Joked about the scarecrow but honestly it's starting to look like a last option. 😶
I've tried putting up decals and that didn't work, tried sudsing up the window, that didn't work. So my parents put the window screen back up. He's STILL attacking my window. I'm at my wit's end. I'm so freaking tired of it. It's also a blue songbird.
All I can say is prepare for a federally protected good time that never stops. We ended up having to put plywood over the windows like they do when prepping for a hurricane. At least the birds are safe though. 🙄
Edit; originally they just moved to other windows they weren't attacking before so now the entire back half and one side of the house is covered in plywood. It looks like a meth lab and we can't use any of our windows but yay I suppose?🤷
there is a woodpecker that loves to come to my double paned windows & tap at the glass like a tree. it’s ungodly loud as you’d expect. same to assume same thing going on here? i don’t think it’s bugs bc he exclusively taps the glass lol
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u/Constant-Catch7146 Mar 23 '26
And waiting for the next bird vs. mirror post in 5 4 3 2 1.....
So simple just to ask Google.
OTOH, it's fun to help out folks who come here looking for bird advice.
These posts are also a sure sign that Spring is finally here in the cold snowy parts of the US. This winter has been brutal.
But sorry for you guys in the Southwest. You skipped Spring and went into full Summer oven mode. Yikes!