How to Stop Birds From Flying Into Windows

Learn how to stop birds from flying into your glass windows. Have you ever heard the sickening “thud” of a bird hitting your window glass? Do you hate seeing a gorgeous winged creature lying on the floor, lifeless beneath your window? Unfortunately, every year almost a billion birds suffer terrible deaths due to window collisions in the U.S. only. If you want to prevent birds from flying into your windows, the first step is to understand why birds collide with windows.

Why Do Birds Collide with Windows

Bird strikes occur due to many reasons. Birds are different from people. They do not see the world like we do. They fail to recognize windows as barriers. The reflections they see in a window’s glass often look like open spaces to them. This makes them fly full-speed into a window.

Because bird strikes are extremely common, you might think that birds have poor eyesight, but that is not true. In reality, birds’ eyes are on the sides of their heads, which gives them a wide-angled vision. This 360-degree view gives them the opportunity to spot any predators or rivals that may be approaching. However, this also means that it is difficult for them to focus directly in front of them.

Reflections of Vegetation can cause Bird Strikes

During day time, birds spot reflections of vegetation or see plants through the glass windows. Their attempt to reach those plants results in them colliding with windows. However, nighttime collisions are also common. Nocturnal migrants such as songbirds tend to crash into windows because they’re attracted to the lights they can see through them. They follow the unnatural light because they misinterpret it as the light from the moon or stars that they rely on for navigation.

If you have noticed, bird collisions tend to increase in the spring season. This is because spring is considered the breeding season in which male birds define and defend their territories. This enhanced bird movement leads to an increase in the probability of birds colliding into windows. Furthermore, your window may be the male bird’s defined territory. While you may find it annoying, the bird pecking on your window is actually trying to defend itself. The bird may identify its own reflection as an intruder or danger and may end up attacking the window.

Lastly, birds may also collide with windows when they’re fleeing to seek cover from predators. In an attempt to escape dangerous situations or predators, birds panic and get flustered and end up flying into windows.

How to Prevent Birds from Flying into Windows

Now that you know why birds hit your windows, it’s time to prevent it. Thankfully, doing so is easy. Here are a ways to help ensure bird safety.

1. Relocate Bird Feeders.

Move bird feeders and birdbaths to a different location. Bird houses should be placed either within 3 feet of a window or more than 30 feet away from a window. If placed close to a window, they won’t fly away from the bird feeder with enough force to get themselves injured.

2. Hang wind chimes, wind spinners, pinwheels.

These decorative items placed near or in front of windows can drastically help reduce birds flying into windows. The strange motion of these items cause birds to avoid flying near these windows. This one tip alone, has prevented bird strikes at our house for over two years. At the same time, we have not noticed a decline in bird activity.

3. Cover External Reflections.

Many birds crash into windows because of reflections. Blocking the reflections may help prevent birds from crashing into windows. Stickers of other predator birds such as falcons and hawks may also help keep birds away from the windows.

4. Attach Branches on Your Windows.

You can also attach branches in front of your windows. Arrange the branches in such a way that they don’t affect your view but are effective enough to keep the birds at bay. The branches will cause the birds to slow down while flying, thus preventing collision.

5. Cover Windows with Nettings.

You can opt for covering your windows with nettings. Installing netting will not obstruct your view, but will act as a physical barrier between a bird and window. Small-mesh netting is the best option as it enables the birds to jump off unharmed without getting themselves tangled in the nest.

6. Use Lights When Required.

This step should be followed not only to ensure bird safety but also to help save the environment. Switch your lights off when they’re not in use—especially during nighttime, as it will prevent the nocturnal birds from crashing into windows. Make sure you practice this during migration periods as well.

What to do When a Bird Hits a Window.

Despite these measures, if a bird ends up hitting your window, we suggest you go help the bird. If a bird hits your window and falls down, it’s not necessarily dead. When birds crash into windows they get stunned and let their guard down, which allows predators to attack them. However, checking up on the bird and putting it in a dark box in case it is stunned, will help it recover.

Bird flying into window has become a significant issue in the past few centuries due to the expansion of cities and towns with tall buildings and skyscrapers. Adopt the above measures, especially if you’re residing in a tall building, to prevent birds from flying into your windows. See the American Bird Conservancy – for estimates on bird glass collisions.

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Why Do Birds Fly Into Windows, and Is There Anything You Can Do to Prevent It?

Here’s what you can do to stop them from hitting your home, according to an expert from the National Audubon Society.

Nothing is more startling than when a wild bird flies into the window. After all, it would seem odd that birds—having exceptional navigation systems and knowing where to go when they fly south every winter—would collide headfirst into a pane of glass. So, why is it so common for birds to fly into windows and how can we help prevent it? «Birds fly into windows because they don’t perceive them as hard barriers,» explains John Rowden, senior director of bird-friendly communities at the National Audubon Society. «They may see mirror-like reflections in the glass that look like space or habitat that is appropriate to fly towards or they don’t see the glass at all if it’s transparent and there’s something on the other side they want to fly toward.»

But flying into a window can be fatal if the bird is on a migration path or trying to escape a predator. Birds tend to fly at faster speeds in those situations and could become confused when they see what appears to be an empty space; the impact could cause significant injuries for the birds. Is there anything you can do?

How to Prevent It

The best way to protect wild birds from flying into your windows is to ensure that your windows are, in fact, visible. «If people want to make glass visible to birds, there are a number of ways to do it—often with things they may already have around the house,» says Rowden. «People can use decals, stickers, string, paint, tape—anything that birds can see and avoid—to create a pattern on the glass that will help the birds see it as a barrier and avoid it.» You can do this in several ways, including patterned window film, screens, or nets. When you aren’t using the window, you can keep the external shades or shutters closed so that birds don’t fly into your window, or else place decorative decals over the windows to deter birds from the area. The sound of wind chimes may also keep them away. And if you want to watch the birds and still keep them safe, move the bird feeder within three feet of the window. It lessens the chance that they’ll gain enough speed to hurt themselves on the window if they need to escape a surprise predator.

«Small birds see even small gaps as passages,» explains Rowden, «so the general rule is that the pattern created should have gaps that are no larger than four inches side to side and two inches top to bottom (some recommendations are even smaller—no bigger than two by two inches, since hummingbirds and other tiny birds can fly into small spaces).» Therefore, this is something that you will want to keep in mind as you prepare your windows. Visual barriers should also be placed outside of the window in order to eliminate the mirror effect.

When A Bird Flies Into Your Window: Symbolically What It Means And What To Do To Prevent Future Collisions

Symbolic meaning of a bird flying into a window. Photo of red chested bird in tree by Fred Moon on Unsplash

When A Bird Flies Into Your Window

Symbolically What It Means And What To Do To Prevent Future Collisions

amanda linette meder

Updated 2020.04.09, and just as an FYI, this post contains affiliate links.

When a bird flies into your window, symbolically, it can mean a few things. It can also be a cue to biological signs in your area. In this article, we are going to discuss both —

As humans living amongst nature, fortunately, and unfortunately, we get to be in the presence of many births and deaths every day.

Life is a circle. While here, we experience everything from seeds that germinate in the spring to mosses dying off in the summer, to the loss of our loved ones to the birth of new loved ones.

The most challenging death events often deal with those associated with animals because they are most like us.

Further, birds are well known for having a connection to the Spirit World due to their visual abilities to see things that we cannot. So typically, people do consider birds to be one of the more spiritually in tune animals. However, many of them are in tune, just in other ways.

Birds can fly into windows repeatedly for a variety of reasons.

I’ve been asked a lot about robins, so let’s start this post with this specific species of bird.

Robins themselves, in the birding world, are very well known to go after their reflection, and fly into windows and generally get confused.

This happens especially in and around their breeding season, which is usually anywhere between April to July. Think of it as a rut, but for Robins.

Robins doing this could be due to hormones, emotions, or even just the angle of the sun in the sky that makes reflections harder for bird eyes to grasp at this time of year.

If you live somewhere, where there is a lot of wildland interface, you may see some of these behaviors more than usual. If you can track it to a specific time of year, having a bird fly into a window, even if it happens repeatedly, maybe more biological.

Even still, anything that happens is always sending you a message. So this event is giving you some sort of information, regardless of what is causing it — a spiritual message, an intellectual message, however, you want to define it.

In the interface between wildlife and humans, which is everywhere these days, it’s just getting harder and harder to avoid these types of interactions.

Symbolically when something like this happens repeatedly, when things like this start to happen to you in circles, pay attention.

Symbolism of a bird flying into your window

Tips for caring for a bird that flew into a window. Photo of Robin on ledge by Kyle Johnston on Unsplash

If birds start staring in your window and it keeps happening time and time again, look into processing the accumulated experiences as a possible calling.

If you always happen to find yourself in the presence of animals who need your support, it could be a sign of a life calling in animal care.

People who have repeat experiences with a specific thing are

Often breaking patterns

Having the Universe attempting to reveal your gifts

Becoming aware of their purpose

Such experiences like this can build up to point the way.

An accumulation of experiences, can tell you and let you know this is what you’re supposed to go next with your career or in life.

Birds passing around you may be a sign you are meant to help birds transition to Spirit.

Helping a soul transition into death (mammalian or otherwise) is a profession called death midwiving.

A Death Midwife, also called psychopomp, is a profession common in the shamanistic community.

Instead of bringing a soul into this world, in Death Midwiving, you’re helping a soul’s transition out of this world. People who do this for their calling do tremendous help for their communities.

They reduce the population of earthbound spirits lingering around on earth. They help the living who sense those types of Spirits lead more peaceful lives. They provide restitution for the afterlife by preparing the living for what to expect in death.

They also make the whole death experience easier for the person or animal dying themselves. For the loved ones who remain, they ease their worry.

When you bring a death midwife into the dying process, wondering whether someone made it over okay is never a worry.

So, whether what you are experiencing is a biological message or a spiritual message, the experience may symbolize

A future in animal care

Your gift is helping animal souls transition

A purpose in caring for birds

If you have an injured bird, if you have a wildlife rescue within driving distance, take the animal to your nearest rescue.

Follow the below tips are only in the circumstance if you happen to have no access to an official wild animal rescue shelter.

Steps to care for an injured bird and reduce future collisions

Photo of small bird on grey pebble background by Dids from Pexels

Move it out of the sun.

Put it in a cozy box off the ground, away from predators, and where it can fly off safely. An old shoebox will do just fine. If it’s raining, make sure there’s a cover.

Provide a little food and a water source. I like to offer a few dried mealworms myself as a bit of protein for the road.

If it’s cold out, provide warm bedding, an old flannel shirt is just fine. Just make sure something you’re okay with your bird pooping in it before flying off, as many birds will lighten their load before taking flight.

If you notice a broken wing or that the bird is not flying off after an hour, call your local wildlife rehabilitation center or a veterinarian if you haven’t already.

See what they suggest or if they can take over from there.

Most of the time, a bird who flies into a window is just stunned. They eventually fly off and recover, and you find yourself returning to your shoebox with an empty nest, a stained shirt, and a job well done.

To reduce future window collisions, consider getting those bird decal window stickers you see at rural hardware stores. I have a few myself, and they do help decrease collisions. I’ve noticed a significant decrease in the number of window collisions I’ve experienced since getting mine, and I only have them in a few areas.

A series of refractive objects or window decals with non-predatory imagery usually is excellent, too, if you do want to continue to have birds around.

Whether you choose something refractive or a decal, if you want to continue being a bird-friendly habitat, choose something for your windows that helps the birds both:

Identify there’s a solid surface there

Decrease the reflection back into the forest

I’ve also found establishing a window feeder does help.

Feeders, as well as decals and refractors, can communicate a «this is a wall» message.

Helpful if you want to get across boundaries to young birds learning about what windows are, all while continuing to create a welcoming atmosphere for your forest friends.

To recap, if a bird flies into a window

If you keep having run-ins with animals who need your help, it could be a calling or a sign of your purpose

Most birds recover

You can decrease collisions by sending wall signals to birds flying around, such as through decals or window feeders

Bird collisions can be meaningful, though collisions can decrease while still preserving interactions with wildlife.

They can indicate a path working with or caring for birds, or a purpose working with birds on a spiritual level, such as in shamanism.

If you follow any of the steps in this post, know that rewarding interactions with birds will likely continue if it is your path.