What To Do When a Bird Hits Your Window

You might be eating breakfast or reading a book, and suddenly you hear a hollow ‘plunk’. A bird has hit your window!

When a bird hits your window, it often gets stunned, and you can help it out by protecting it until it can fly again. When you go out and find it, it might be lying on its side with its mouth open, and sometimes its eyes will be closed. Pick it up gently and cup it in your hands like this –

Dazed, this Junco was happy to relax in Rebecca's hands for a bit.

If your bird is stunned, it might take up to an hour for it to regain its wits, so you’re going to have to be patient. If it’s very, very cold, you can bring the bird inside, but you have to hold it quite carefully, keeping your hand strong but not squeezing the bird. Otherwise when it revives you may have a bird loose in the house, and that's a way that the bird will really get hurt! If your bird isn’t ‘posturing’, it will probably recover. If it begins to twist its head over its back at an odd angle, that means that there is bleeding in the brain and the best you can do is to stay with your bird until it dies.

If you can, remain outside with your bird, and give it plenty of time to recuperate. Let it rest in your hand. We stayed with our Junco for forty-five minutes until it flew away.

           A perfect opportunity to observe your bird friend up close.
This is a rare chance to get up close to a wild, living creature. You’ll notice some amazing things, like bird ‘eyelashes’ made of tiny little feathers.

Sometimes, a bird will regain enough strength to fly out of your hands, but will crash-land on the ground. Stay nearby to protect it from cats and predatory birds, and wait until it regains enough strength to fly up onto a branch. Once, we had to watch a bird for two hours until it was fully revived!

When your bird is safely perched in a tree, it’s time to make sure that you don’t have to rescue more birds. You can do this by decorating the outside of your window with feathers tied to string. It’s rather pretty, and won’t obscure your view too much. Plus, your friends will ask why there are feathers on your window, and you’ll get to tell them about your wild birds.

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