Subject
Shadow of a bird image
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Date
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> Well, I've certainly experienced --- not often, but more than once ---
> seeing, or hearing, a bird fly straight into an upright glass
> windowpane, and then falling either dead or stunned to the ground
> outside. There would have to be a clear reflection of the sky in the
> pane for the bird to be so deluded.
For what it's worth Department:
Territorial male birds drive potential competitors from the environs
of their nesting sites during the courting and nesting seasons.
Believing that their own reflected image is a male invader, they attack
the reflecting surface, generally glass or polished metal. Cardinals
are extremely persistent; not using a dive bombing technique, they may
struggle with their adversary for weeks at a time. Smaller birds which
use flight speed in the encounter are in greater danger. Robins and
Bluejays don't seem to care. I have no information on Waxwings; they
visit us in flocks only in late spring to strip the cherry trees.
Interestingly, birds, like many humans, do not inhibit this
instinctive behavior in response to life experience - reflection being
absent from their learning strategies.
Sandy Drescher
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> seeing, or hearing, a bird fly straight into an upright glass
> windowpane, and then falling either dead or stunned to the ground
> outside. There would have to be a clear reflection of the sky in the
> pane for the bird to be so deluded.
For what it's worth Department:
Territorial male birds drive potential competitors from the environs
of their nesting sites during the courting and nesting seasons.
Believing that their own reflected image is a male invader, they attack
the reflecting surface, generally glass or polished metal. Cardinals
are extremely persistent; not using a dive bombing technique, they may
struggle with their adversary for weeks at a time. Smaller birds which
use flight speed in the encounter are in greater danger. Robins and
Bluejays don't seem to care. I have no information on Waxwings; they
visit us in flocks only in late spring to strip the cherry trees.
Interestingly, birds, like many humans, do not inhibit this
instinctive behavior in response to life experience - reflection being
absent from their learning strategies.
Sandy Drescher
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm