I Soap The Windows

This post is about the day I had to soap the windows and not to clean them.

 Flocks of little birds have been loving the nyger seed in the front yard feeders.  My whirlybird hangers I suspended in front of the windows had been doing a fine job of preventing window strikes.  However, I put these up in 2013 and some have given up the ghost and left a couple of panes empty.  I've looked but not seen them in any dollar store since.  We didn't mind them and in fact, they made a pleasant little tinkle against the window in wind- not unlike a wind chime.

 I had been meaning to address the now bare windows but with all the gray weather I guess they weren't posing a reflection problem for the birds so I never thought about it.

That changed the minute the sun came out.  In the space of a couple of hours one day I heard several dreaded strikes of birds hitting windows.  I looked but couldn't find any birds on the ground.

Later that same evening  I saw a lone bird sitting on the ground under the feeder and when I glanced out again 15 minutes later he was still there.  I went outside to investigate and was just in time to see the poor little fellow keel over.  I'm not sure he was one of the birds who'd hit a window but quite possibly he was.  It was a Purple Finch btw, a bird Roger Tory Peterson described as a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice.  I got to stroke his tiny red plumed head before taking him back to the forest.

I'd read about the continuing problem of birds hitting glass on tall buildings in downtown Ottawa and our local Wild Bird Sanctuary produced a little film showing ways you can help stop this from happening.  One way was to make streaks on your windows with soap.  I decided to give that a try.

My streaks, as you can see on the window above, are not very even.  I had the 4 step stool and didn't feel comfortable hopping up on the top step so had to reach high consequently wobbly markings.

It's great we live in the country and we can do basically whatever we want to our windows, isn't it?

Happily this seems to be working fine. Not one hit since I've marked the windows.
 The rain we had one day washed the marks off one of the panels so I had to go out and redo them.

 But it is only a little work for great reward.