Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 14:37:36 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Abbie Banks Subject: Re: question about odd bluebird behavior MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Katharine, I have seen the very same behavior that you speak of exhibited. This behavior has not been a regular pattern year after year. Several years may pass and I will not see the Bluebirds do this type of window/mirror striking at all. Unfortunately, it is not just the Bluebirds that produce this annoying window striking. Cardinals and Robins are quite adept at this also. The female Bluebird would spend much time at the side view mirrors of the parked vehicles or at the rear windows of my house. As I mentioned, I believe it was an instinct for territorial protection. Perhaps seeing another female Bluebird creates another type of protection. I will be having the babies banded this year and this will enable me to record the birds returning to my property. In previous years, when the window striking by the Robins or Cardinals became incredibly annoying, I was trying everything imaginable to deter this activity. I hung bright streamers, put large pictures of snakes in the window, pulled the shades and so on. Nothing stopped the window striking. I do know of someone who placed a type of soft screening stretched across the windows of the house until this annoying striking period ended. The most distressing thing regarding this behavior is to see the bird's feathers left on the window from continual strikes. This activity, I believe, is mostly related to backyard birding. I have monitored Bluebird trails for quite a few years and naturally, since there are no windows or reflective surfaces, you would not see this activity in the fields. I hope the Bluebirds nest in your box and you enjoy their presence. Please email me and let me know how things progress. Abbie/Bowie dovekie7@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================