Nature Done Wright

Incorporating the Celery Farm and Screech Owl Companion blogs

September 22, 2013

Mysterious Bird Deaths — Advice Needed!

Ravi Potluri writes:

We live in Rio Vista, right next to the Celery Farm, and have had a great time so far enjoying the abundant bird life that we can see without stepping out of our house.

 Much to our consternation though, we have found a dead bird on our porch each of the last 4 days. A dove, a female goldfinch, a Red-eyed Vireo, and today a cardinal. There was no such incident the first 5 weeks we have been here.

 Would you have any idea on why this may be happening, and what we may be able to do to stop this phenomenon?

We do have windows where they are being found. We also have a very active feeder, but that is about 15-20 feet away, and we have not seen a vireo on it.

This may be a night time phenomenon, but we are not sure.

My first guess is window strikes, but hard to explain why all of a sudden and four days in a row.  Does anyone have any ideas?

 

2 comments

  • Ravi Potluri
    13 years ago Reply

    Thanks for taking interest Patrick.
    The most plausible explanation appears to be what Jim suggested – birds panicking and dashing off towards the windows as a result of a hawk attack (we see Cooper’s Hawks quite regularly around.
    We are happy to report though that we have not had a bird death since, and we have our fingers crossed forever now!

  • Patrick Carney
    13 years ago Reply

    Were the windows recently cleaned? Or over the last four days, have there been lights on behind the windows after dark – nocturnal migrants are confused by lights. I don’t know the reason for why they are suddenly happening except for something like the above, but in the meantime I would just take steps against window strikes and see if that stops it.

Leave a comment.

2 comments

  • Ravi Potluri
    13 years ago Reply

    Thanks for taking interest Patrick.
    The most plausible explanation appears to be what Jim suggested – birds panicking and dashing off towards the windows as a result of a hawk attack (we see Cooper’s Hawks quite regularly around.
    We are happy to report though that we have not had a bird death since, and we have our fingers crossed forever now!

  • Patrick Carney
    13 years ago Reply

    Were the windows recently cleaned? Or over the last four days, have there been lights on behind the windows after dark – nocturnal migrants are confused by lights. I don’t know the reason for why they are suddenly happening except for something like the above, but in the meantime I would just take steps against window strikes and see if that stops it.

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