Prevent Window Strikes and Help Save the Song Birds
Here’s a harsh truth: colliding with windows can be fatal for birds. Even if they manage to fly away, they're not just “stunned,” birds are often seriously injured. Windows reflecting sky or greenery trick birds into thinking there’s a clear flight path, and juvenile birds (who are just figuring things out) are especially at risk.
Preventing window strikes is one way you can help Save the Song Birds. With a few thoughtful adjustments, you can help birds recognize your windows as barriers, not passage ways.
- Feeder Placement: Place bird feeding stations within three feet (1 meter) of the window or beyond ten feet (3 meters). Within three feet, birds ‘fleeing’ the feeder area will not have built up enough speed to injure themselves if they strike the window. Beyond ten feet, birds will have enough time to spot and avoid the window.
- Visual Cues: Apply deterrents to your windows (such as screens or decals) to help birds see the barrier and give them a chance to take action before any harm is done.
- Install a Window Feeder: Use a window feeder to make birds more aware of the glass and so you have a front-row seat to watch your feathered visitors.
Go here to learn more, or stop by the store and we’ll walk you through the best ways to wipe out window strikes.
Go here to purchase window decals online
Missing Something? Where Are the Birds?
From time to time, you may notice a lack of birds at your feeders. It is sometimes hard to tell why we see fewer birds at our feeders, but there are a few possible explanations, including:
- Changes in birds' seasonal movements and food preferences
- An abundance of natural food sources; this often happens in late summer / early fall. When natural food supplies are abundant, wild birds will take advantage of these sources, often to the exclusion of the foods we offer them in our feeders. Studies have shown that wild birds still rely on natural foods for about 80% of their diet when bird feeders are present.
- Sudden extremes in weather
- A recent loss of some area of local habitat
- A neighbor putting out new bird feeders
- A hawk, cat or other predator taking up residence in the neighborhood
problems with a feeder or food
The birds will return to your feeders. In the meantime, here are a few tips you might want to consider to increase the number of birds in your yard. Keep feeders clean and filled with fresh food.
- Provide different types of bird feeders, offering a variety of foods.
- Install multiple bird feeding stations so there are not too many feeders in one location. Birds like elbow-room, too.
- Install a bird bath. Birds need a dependable year-round water source for drinking and bathing.
- Birds need to feel safe when feeding. Provide protective cover, such as special plantings, hollow logs, and brush piles.
- Offer places to raise young. With more and more destruction of the natural habitat, many birds are having trouble finding places to nest.
Visit the store or call us to learn more about how to bring the birds back to your yard.
Pop's Hummingbird Swing
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OCTOBER NATURE HAPPENINGS
Mid-October brings the greatest variety of migrating raptors. Golden Eagles, Peregrine Falcons and Merlin’s can be sighted. Broad-winged Hawks are gone by end of the month.
•Sharp-shinned Hawk population increases dramatically from northern migration. Look for them along road sides and hanging out at your bird feeders.
• Most Wood Ducks begin to migrate south this month, but a few stay to over winter in Eastern part of the state.
• Green-winged Teals and Pied-billed Grebes are migrating south, look for them at Abrams Creek, Lake Frederick, and farm ponds.
• Last of the Chimney Swifts will leave at the beginning of the month.
• Merlin, a pigeon-sized falcon from Canada, is migrating through the area headed south. Merlin’s will be found scanning open areas from treetops. Look for them at Blandy Farm, Abrams Creek Wetlands, and Lake Frederick
.• Purple finches arrive and will be attracted to finch feeders.
• Fox Sparrows, Lincoln Sparrows and American Tree Sparrows may be seen under feeders scratching through litter during their autumn migration.
• Blue-headed Vireos are traveling through to their wintering grounds. Look for them in coniferous habitats foraging for insects. Wood Duck
• Orange-crowned, Tennessee, and Black and White Warblers are migrating to their wintering grounds, look for them in deciduous forests gleaning for insects.
• Lapland Longspur, a common arctic tundra bird is sometimes found wintering in pastures and open grasslands foraging for insects and seeds.
• Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, House wrens, Catbirds and Tree swallows have departed by the end of the month.
• Juncos, White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows become common under the feeders towards the end of the month, migrating from their northern breeding habitats.
• Look for Rufous Hummingbirds to arrive in Maryland and Virginia, keep your feeders up through December!
• This is the month to install and repair nest boxes for use next year. This is a very good time to clean out Purple Martin houses.
• Keep nesting boxes up for cavity-dwelling birds to roost during the upcoming colder nights and inclement weather.
• Goldenrods, Asters, Bonesets and Blazing Stars are in bloom.
• White-tailed Deer bucks go into rut and are moving, keep a watchful eye along the highways.
• Squirrels are working at an insane level right now caching acorns and other tree nuts for the upcoming winter.
• Groundhogs are feeding profusely in preparation for hibernation.
• Virginia bats are either migrating south for the winter or seeking shelter in surrounding caves to hibernate.
• Cankerworms are emerging from their cocoons as adult moths eager to mate. Females will lay clusters of barrel-shaped eggs on branches, which will hatch in the spring.
• Spider webs are EVERYWHERE. Female spiders are preparing to lay eggs which will hatch in the springtime. Don’t destroy their webs as they are a natural insect removal system catching and eliminating vast amounts of insects including the stinkbug! Want an educational book for the children? E.B.Whites book Charlotte’s Web was release 68 years ago this month.
• Live in the mountains? Rattlesnakes are slithering together to form communal hibernation knots in rock outcroppings and borrows to escape the cold winter.
• Beavers are very active in the evenings while caching a winter supply of food.
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