Crazy Cardinal

[MAYNARDSMOM]

First the bear problem on here now I have a crazed cardinal. Right outsideon eof our living room windows I believe this phsyco has a nest. It keeps coming tot he window & frantically pecking at it. I have believe she is seeing her reflection & is being protective. Or maybe she's just cranky - what to do? Tried shutting the curtains.

 

[JeanneMarie]

Oh My Gosh! We have a crazy Cardinal too! She has been flying herself into our front windows for 2 MONTHS now! She starts at about 6am (wakes us up every morning) and continues all day long.

We have tried everything we can think of to get her to stop. We've put up a scarecrow in front of the windows (They are large floor to ceiling, 2 story windows) and that worked for about one day until she got used to it. We've put decals on the windows and that didn't even slow her down.

I've read that screens help because they get rid of that reflection they're seeing. We have casement windows that roll out, so the screens are on the inside. No help there.

I keep thinking when her nest hatches she'll go away, but this started in early April and she's still going strong.

I don't mind admitting we've had thoughts of bird murder in our hearts. She has seriously disrupted our lives with her thumping against the windows all day long, every day. I wish I knew the answer.

I hope your Cardinal doesn't continue as long as ours has!

 

[jonahnah]

I had a psycho bird pecking at the brass kick plate on my front door several years ago. (I couldn't figure out why no one was at the door when I opened it! )

What finally worked was covering the kickplate w/ construction paper so it couldn't see its reflection anymore. Even then, it still took a couple of days and I had to adjust the paper so every millimeter of the brass was covered or the bird would come back.

This door was on our porch so the paper was protected from the weather, but maybe something else more plastic-y & durable would work? It can't be reflective at all.

HTH & good luck!

 

[jbliff]

It must be the season! We've been having a crazy cardinal attack our window for the past 3-4 weeks. We bought a fake owl and put it in front of the door and it worked for about a week. The instructions say not to leave the owl there but move it around. It worked for about a week and a half, but now the cardinal is used to the owl and is attacking the window again, even though he doesn't do it as much. He starts at about 6 in the morning so it's no picnic having to listen to him slam into the window. I don't even think it's the same bird each time. If anyone has a solution, let me know.

 

[cataddict]

Last spring we had a cardinal pecking at our front window every time one of our cats walked by. I'm sure she was protecting her nest (or thought she was--the cats just looked at her with a WTH look). It stopped after a couple of weeks so we assumed her babies were ready to leave the nest. In the meantime it drove us crazy since it seemed to happen like clockwork around dawn each morning!! I think the cats would sit there and watch just to make that bird get crazy.

 

[Peaceful Rainbow]

You can try putting the silhouette of a bird on the window. That really works well if you have a window birds regularly fly into and it may deter them. You can try searching for bird silhouette and see what you find. Cardinals seem really prone to attacking windows. Other species will do it, but I hear about cardinals more than anything else.

 

[kathryn]

Is it a she (brownish color) or a he (red)?
If it's a male, he's being territorial, and seeing the reflection of himself in the window brings out his aggression.

I saw what I think was an Eastern Kingbird (I didn't know what it was, but looked it up, and that looks close) doing Kamikaze-like dives towards a huge window of one of our campus buildings earlier in the year (springtime, mating season).

 

[MAYNARDSMOM]

This one is actually a male - although I do always see the female near by. I assume that must mean they fight one another then? Seems we have quite a few in our area this year. Pretty to watch. Well excpet when he's banging on my window

 

[kathryn]

I assume that must mean they fight one another then?

I don't know how much they actually fight, but they will agressively stake out their territory (with aggressive displays, flying at each other, singing to announce ' this is my turf' ).