We are having an awful time with doves hitting our windows lately. With four east-facing large windows overlooking our small backyard, and reflecting the sky and trees behind our home, we've always had an occasional "THUD!" against the windows -- but it's getting really bad now.
Our windows are tinted and are quite reflective outside. It's very difficult to see through these windows into our home from the backyard, due to the tint and the dark green-color of our walls in that particular part of the house. This leads to "danger alley" for birds, primarily white-winged and mourning doves.
Today has been the worst string of collisions (3 or 4 within the past 24 hours) in memory, and it's heart-wrenching. The latest strike was one mourning dove I'm almost certain will not make it -- its wing was awfully mangled when I accidentally startled it and watched it barely clear our backyard fence and land abruptly in the brush less than 25 feet away. It left the usual dove imprint and downy feathers, as well as urine from the shock of hitting the window at full speed. Like I said...heart-wrenching.
I'm at a loss as to a viable solution that can help reduce the occurrence of bird strikes but not reduce our enjoyment of our view into our backyard. I've read some great information at websites such as
http://www.flap.org/new/diurnalfr.htm, but whitewashing my windows or sticking a film to them that will get baked on by the Texas summer sun, have me a little tentative. Even the
Droll Yankee's "Warning Web" doesn't look like a good option, since I'd need about 10 or 20 of them to break of the expanse of windows enough to lessen strikes.
Hanging things indoors in the windows has met with only limited success; sometimes, I'll find a dove imprint right in front of where the item was hanging -- it becomes a target instead of a cue to "pull up!" Since the windows are tinted, it can be difficult to see even items hung right inside the window or taped to it. And even things taped to the outside of the windows are not a perfect solution -- shortly after we moved in 3 years ago, I made big masking tape "X's" on all four windows, but once the doves got used to them, they'd fly into the windows just the same.
Does anyone have any advice or tips they want to share? The doves all generally visit my yard to ground feed below two seed feeders placed on a free-standing pole at the far back corner of our yard (20-25 feet away). Since our backyard is small, there is nowhere further away from the house these feeders can be placed. A bird bath is located between these feeders and the dangerous windows in question... but most of the doves that strike seem to be taking off from below the feeders, not the bird bath.
We also have two feeder within 5 feet of the house and thus much closer to the "danger windows"; these feeders are attached to a pole clamped to our deck and situated to the right of the expanse of windows, but they're used exclusively by small songbirds (tufted titmice, house sparrows, house finches, etc.) and not doves, so moving these further away would do little good. The doves are (so far) strictly the ones hitting the windows, and they're travelling at a good rate of speed by the time they leave the ground feeding area and careen into the windows.
Watching (and hearing) doves strike our windows with ever increasing frequency is NOT how I want to spend my days... or have the birds spend theirs. I'm open to any thoughts or suggestions...
Oddly enough, no other windows in the house are struck by birds at all...not even the kitchen windows (3) which also face the backyard, but overlook our deck. These windows usually have the blinds drawn but tilted open for viewing. Unfortunately, we have no window treatments on the 4 large "danger windows" I'm referring to...and curtains there would ruin the point of having these 4 lovely windows and our terrific backyard view of the birds, sky and greenbelt.
Oddly enough, just this week I read about the research being done by Daniel Klem Jr. on the
high toll windows/glass is taking on bird populations.