I have a mud lark who throws itself feet first at four large windows around my house. It has been doing this now for about five weeks. It throws itself really quite hard and continues to do this up to forty or fifty times until the whole window is covered in mudlark 'footprints'. Often it will start on our bedroom window around 5.30 in the morning and wakes us up with its loud banging on the window. My windows are covered in footprints so much we can barley see out of them, if I clean them the mudlark will have them covered in footprints in no time. While my husband and I adore our birds around the garden this little fella has become quite annoying. Anything we can do to stop him?? And more so does anyone know WHY he is doing this??
Michele
Perhaps attacking its reflection thinking that it is another individual. Same birds get territorial during the breeding season. Refraining from cleaning it too much could help.
Ryu
Canberra
Aiming for DSLR-quality shots with a bridge camera
Always a difficult one, Michele. Birds attacking reflections occurs at our place in spring when, I suspect, males see their reflections as competitors for food, nesting spots & all those other things which ensure, as far as possible, the passing on of the genes & the continuation of the species. So they attack their "competitors" to ward them off.
Your concern about dirty, Mudlark-infected windows, is a reflection (if you'll excuse the pun) of the difficulty we humans have in accepting wildlife as part of our normal lives. Sometimes human invention is able to come up with strategies where the needs of wildlife are accommodated in our daily lives. In your case perhaps a couple of strips of masking tape placed diagonally across the window might deter the Mudlark. However, this will come at the cost of having your view of the outside world compromised for the duration of the breeding season. Others might decide not to clean their windows because having Mudlarks around is more important than having a clean window. Such are the sorts of compromises we need to make if we are to enjoy the benefits, even the necessity, of a world with wildlife.
On a slightly different tangent, I've deterred Superb Fairywrens & Grey Shrike-thrushes from attacking the side mirrors on our car by cutting off the sleeves of a couple of my favorite old shirts & slipping them over the mirrors. Both the birds & their competitors are elsewhere now & our mirrors are clean but at the cost of my dismembered shirts being consigned to the dustbin of ecological history.
We have a Female Mudlark that has been doing this nonstop for over a year!
I did manage to capture her in a possum trap with a mirror at one end and did remover her some 15 min away, but obviously not far enough away as within a couple of weeks she was back and at it again.
We have tried those owls, but they are useless.
My wife wants it gone and doesn't care how. I cannot however harm a native bird, even one as annoying as this.
I am open to suggestions.
Gosh, we've got one that does this too! I was wondering if maybe it's a protection mechanism? They seem to be very clearly trying to dirty up the windows, maybe so they are not a hazard. We recently cleaned our windows and hung scarves on them from the outside, the birds (there were two) are no longer flying at those windows, just the one that we forgot to scarf. So far it seems to be working quite well, it's a bit of an effort to get the scarves up there as we've got pretty high windows, but it worked out alright in the end. I'm sure that if you don't have scarves you could use something else, or even pick some up from an op-shop, they usually have plenty. Or you could even use streamers. From expirience, hanging things up on the inside of the window doesn't seem to work, as the outside of the window is still reflective, so if you're hanging something up to put the birds off, it needs to be on the outside.
I hope this helps, i'm interested to hear what other people think and use.
That seems to be a useful idea, Elsie. Perhaps Adelaide Crows scarves would be the most effective.
Haha, maybe :) Though some might argue that perhaps West Coast Eagles scarves would do the trick too! (though i'm more of a league fan myself).
It might not be the most aesthetically pleasing look, however it is effective!
Hawthorn fans might have an opinion on this, too, Elsie.
Hmm, you're right there :)
I was speaking to a friend recently about the peewee's trouble making, and they said that they had stuck pieces of paper to the outsides of their windows to dissuade the birds. It seems to be working fine, so that's another option too.