A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Suicidal Cardinal

I was awakened this morning by what sounded like an axe being used to chop down a tree. If you recall, I live next to crazy people who started out with a wooded lot only to cut every single tree to the ground using an axe. (because they borrowed our chain saw, left it out in the rain, and it won't work anymore). I jumped up to look out the window to see if these lunatics were cutting down trees in my yard. (they have come into my yard to kill black snakes because they're afraid they'll crawl into their yard so it wasn't such a crazy thought) They were not. I got in the bath tub and continued to hear the noise. After I got out of the tub I noticed a beautiful cardinal flying into a window over and over. I hung something up covering the window hoping he would stop, but he didn't. I opened the window and pushed down the screen so he would hit the screen and stop. All he did was move to the next window. All the while he's banging his head he's singing to the top of his voice. Now that the screens are pushed down so he can't hit the bottom windows, he's moved to the top windows. I can't run around the house pushing the screens up and down all day. What can I do?

If he is intent on killing himself there's not much you can do. It's evolution. If he is acting this way he could pass this behavioral trait on to his descendants and we coul lose much of the Cardinal species. So if a few aberrant individuals kill themselves it benefits the species in the long run.

Wow, that's so weird....I never knew that birds would purposefully try to kill themselves..I'd hate watching that happen here....

Sounds like he is in a mating moode and is seeing a reflection in the windows. Ye need to do something so it doesn't reflect. Soap is the only thing I can think of at the moment since it's not the time of year to put spray snow on the windows. lol Good luck!

I wondered if he has a nest around somewhere and is seeing his reflection and trying to protect his nest. I don't want to soap all my windows. What a mess. I don't know if he flew off and died or if he gave up finally. We've been outside this afternoon so maybe we just scared him away and hopefully he'll stop it. Thanks for all the insight.

To my understanding as to why they do this
is the male is thinking another male is in
his territory and he's defending his territory
and fighting the "other male".....
And it's spring time, fighting for the females' area to nest ....

Males are crazy whatever species. I don't know many females who will knock themselves silly for a little action.

Thorn knocks himself silly.

My 4 year old niece saw her first Cardinal the other day...and she loved it...said it's her favorite bird, but hummingbirds are her VERY favorite.

My 4 year old grandson likes Cardinals, too. Oh! and Loz, I heard some Red-Winged Blackbirds singing in a horse pasture about 6 hours ago.

That's cool Thorny!!!! I was so happy you helped me ID them.

My 4 yr old niece likes them because red is her favorite color....last year it was blue...

Usually she'll tell me she could see the bird I was pointing out and I knew she was looking in the wrong place....Well when she saw the cardinal she said...I see it, I really do! And she was actually looking at the right spot.

That bird is still trying to kill himself. He's not singing anymore so I guess he's succeeding. I closed the blinds last night hoping to stop him. He goes from window to window. It's sad.

Sheri, we used to take some soap, and start drawing soap streaks across the window to break up the reflection.
Or try spraying some of that fake Christmas snow on the outside of the windows...right at his eye level, or landing on the sill level.

0r some stickers/window thingies, breaks up the mirror effect on the window...

We had huge picture windows, and we've gone the route, so we know exactly what you're going thru.

There was something on the news lastnight about a lady who had massive windows in her house and there were cardinals doing this. They said exactly what you said...the bird sees his refection and wants to scare it away. They had some shots of the bird actually swooping down from trees and pecking the window with one loud "thwop!". It was kind of funny to see it happening. Apparently, the birds go at such an angle so not to kill themselves. Smart.

When I was a kid there was a woodpecker who kept up a stead drumnbeat at my bedroom window,dow, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. . It woke me every morning all summer long. Thankfully he did not reappear the following spring or summer.