As my old buddy Anthony used to say, "Birds are weird."
There's nothing worse than sitting in your house and hearing the smack of a bird hitting
the window.
Last time it happened to me there was a moment of fear, then a realization of what really
happened, then sadness and pity for the poor little robin…
There's a lot of feels here.
Now that I've recovered though, I'm angry.
What's up bird?
Can't you figure this out?
Real talk: Nah.
they can't,
Each year, as many as 340 million birds smash into cars, and over 10,000 hit airplanes in
2013.
Building windows claim another 100 million, every YEAR!
There's two things afoot here, Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology says scientists believe birds
hit windows because they think it's a hole in the building.
Birds, like many animals, can't understand reflections, so when they see trees and sky
reflected in a window on a house, they believe it to be a tunnel through which they can see
the sky on the OTHER side.
Birds, especially those attempting to escape from predators, will fly into the glass attempting
to get to safety.
In fact, most animals can't recognize themselves in a mirror.
The only known species to be able to do so are humans, some great apes, and perhaps dolphins,
elephants and magpies -- it's no coincidence that these are also some of the most intelligent
species around.
When an animal like cat sees a reflection they don't smell another animal, so they know
something's up, but reflections in general are pretty confounding for most creatures.
Cars and airplanes are a whole other problem, I did a video about bird strikes a while back,
so check that out.
But the problem is more than just the wrong place at the wrong time… birds fly fast,
but they're pretty slow in the head.
Based on a comprehensive analysis published last
year in the Journal of Wildlife Management, it appears that the speed of our transportation
network is what claims the lives of millions of birds every year.
A study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B found animal-vehicle collisions occur as
vehicle speeds increase because of the way birds look for predators and other threats.
Note that they only used the brown-headed cowbird, but they found as the bird flew toward
a video of an oncoming car, it initiated escape behavior at a specific distance from the threat.
They figured bird brains are calculating the distance to the threat, not TIME before they
impact the threat -- thus, when the car speed increased, they couldn't get out of the way!
When speeds were low, less than 40 miles per hour (64kph), birds were mostly fine, but
once they exceed 74 (120kph) they were pretty much screwed.
Thinking about it this way, it's incredible that any bird can dodge an airplane accelerating
to 160-plus (250kph+) during takeoff, like a 747 has to.
As I mentioned, most birds aren't able to recognize window reflections.
In the spring, male birds often swoop in to attack windows because they believe the bird
they see in the reflection is encroaching on their breeding grounds.
Penn State says this is most commonly seen in mockingbirds, robins, and cardinals; and
it will stop when they find a mate…
If you're annoyed, maybe you should be the birds…
WINGMAN?