A few days ago I asked if anyone knew what a yellow bird pecking at my window meant. Well, this bird has not let up. He doesn't stick around long after either son or hubs come into my room but seems to love to incessantly peck the window when I am in the room trying to work. It alternates between the pecking and then landing on the sill, only to pace back and forth and return then to the tap, tap, tap. Hubs and son could catch him doing it if they stood in the doorway to my office but not if they entered the room or tried to come close to it. Hubs tried to go out the back and come around to the front to see if he could spot it, but it seems to only like me coming close to it and I can get right up next to the window with it.
At first I thought it was a canary that was lost but have since learned it is probably a warbler or a finch although finches have dark heads and this one is all yellow.
I wondered if his appearance meant something so I did some research. Kinda gave me a few eebies. Here is what I found in bird folklore:
The Devil or 'Old Nick', and negative forces, are often said to be disturbed and attracted by the loud chattering of birds. At the very least such attentions can be seen in weather changes if the noise continues. One of the most common signs of such negative omens relate to birds flying in and out of rooms/windows. This action is seen as a sign of an imminent death, whilst the flight or hovering of a bird around a house or the tapping against a window are seen to indicate negative forces and perhaps death is close.
As I said, kinda gave me the eebiejeebies especially since it would only stick around for me. So I did some more hunting and found this:
Birds are often seen attacking a window, pecking at, or tapping on a window. Birds will also attack mirrors on cars, glossy flower pots, and shiny hubcaps.
A bird is tapping on the window with its beak. Sometimes it is merely pecking at the window; sometimes it seems to be attacking the window. What is going on? In the past, many people took this to be a bad omen foretelling the imminent death of someone in the household. An ancient belief cast birds as the souls of the dead and a bird attacking a window or otherwise trying to enter a house was believed to be the soul of a dead person coming to lead a departing soul into the afterlife. You can read more about souls arriving and leaving in bird
This strange behavior, however, has a less romantic, more scientific explanation. Birds attack shiny surfaces because they see their own reflections. In the case of a window, the bird does not see through the glass: it sees a reflection of the outside, possibly trees and the sky, and another bird of its own species. The real bird does not recognize itself and mistakes the reflected bird for a competitor for territory or mates. It attacks the image in the window, trying to drive the other bird away.
Of course, this is a fruitless exercise. The bird reflection will always be there, forever inaccessible behind an invisible barrier. The real bird often returns many times, compulsively launching itself at the window. If it is very aggressive, it could damage its beak, but most often it just wastes energy and time. Very large birds may break the glass, to the distress of bird and home occupants alike.
If your windows are suffering from the attack of a confused bird and you want to discourage the behavior, the best thing to do is to cover the outside of the window with something. (Don’t cover the inside as the covering will probably be invisible behind the mirror that the birds see.) If you don’t want to cut out too much light, use an opaque plastic that will let light in but not reflect any image. You can also buy black silhouettes of hawks, or spider web decals (see the photograph and my recent blog entry) to discourage birds from attacking windows or flying into them, but again, if the bird is attacking the window, the decal would probably have to be placed on the outside of the pane.
Still kinda eebiejeebied but not as bad. There is a youtube video that is actually one of my favorite songs.
