Birds Reflect, Then Protect

By YVETTE C. HAMMETT The Tampa Tribune

Published: Feb 25, 2007

BRANDON - If the weather doesn't convince you that spring is approaching, just listen for the sound of cardinals slamming into the sliding glass doors.

As the spring equinox draws closer - this year, it's March 21 - the hormone levels in many birds reach their peak. With that comes a strong urge to mate and nest, and an equally strong urge to protect the food supply for their young.

When the birds see their reflections in a mirror or glass window, there are likely to attack, sometimes at full force, thinking they are seeing another of their species infiltrating their territory.

"We must have gotten a thousand calls on this," said Ann Paul, area regional coordinator for the Audubon Society's Gulf Islands Coastal Sanctuaries.

For the birds, she said, the need to protect their territory and the food supply for their young is a matter of life and death. The heightened hormones, Paul said, trigger a defensive mode. "They kind of go into overdrive."

"This can go on from early spring through egg-laying and chick production," said Ann Hodgson, Gulf Coast ecosystem science coordinator for Audubon of Florida. "Wherever there's a reflection."

It's not just cardinals, she said. Mockingbirds, woodpeckers, even sandhill cranes undergo the same hormonal changes.

There are ways humans can keep the birds from slamming into the windows and possibly injuring or killing themselves, and it doesn't take a lot of effort.

Black falcon silhouettes are the fastest and easiest solution, Hodgson said. Cut them out and tape them to the windows the birds are attacking.

The falcon is a natural predator to many of the birds, especially in urban settings, Paul said. So, if a bird sees the silhouette, "what they see is danger, like the shadow of the bird coming through the forest to get them." They are likely to stay away.

Should that effort fail, she said, try soaping the windows to distort the reflection, or cover the windows or a car's side-view mirrors with fabric.

Hodgson said people also need to exercise patience with the birds.

"People need to understand that this is a natural response for these birds," she said.

All wild birds, with very few exceptions, are protected by law. So trying to kill them to stop them from slamming into windows is not only illegal, Paul said, it won't solve the problem. In open nesting territory, there are always other birds ready to move in and take over, she said.

Another way people can help the birds is by placing bird feeders and birdbaths further away from their windows, in areas of the yard that are quiet and provide some cover, Paul said.

Hodgson advises not to put a pole and a birdfeeder in the midst of a sea of St. Augustine grass, where the birds can easily be picked off by predators.

Once the baby birds start to hatch, leave their care to the parent birds, Paul said.

Rather than "rescuing" fallen nestlings from the grass or road and taking them elsewhere for care, set them in a safe place so their parents can find them, she said. It's a fallacy that adult birds will abandon the babies if they smell of humans.

"Otherwise, baby birds need to be fed every 15 minutes from sunrise to sunset. The parents are happy to do that," Paul said. But for people, that's labor intensive. "It's entertaining for about an hour, that's it."

She noted that baby birds don't eat seeds, they eat bugs; one more deterrent to human intervention.

If a baby bird is placed back in the nest, or in a substitute nest, like a hanging pot with Spanish moss inside, the parents will find it and feed it.

Some baby birds simply won't survive, Hodgson said. "They are part of the food chain."

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 657-4532 or at yhammett@tampatrib.com.