Ending Bird Strikes

Hawk silhouettes, shot from inside.

After marking recent bird strikes with blue painter's tape, I stenciled hawk silhouettes on the outside of my living room window (which is directly east of the bird feeders). I'm not sure if the bird-of-prey shape is as important as simply disrupting the reflective surface of the glass, but the shape should be on the outside of the window.

The shape I used is based on a Window Hawk design by Visible Ink. I'd bought a pair of their clingFilm window stickers years ago, from an Audubon Society store in Oregon. Other hawk shapes to base stencils on are available online from The National Wildlife Federation (Make a Hawk Silhouette), and Hawk Mountain bird refuge (Helpful Hawks -- a particularly nice publication, in PDF).

UPDATE: 15 January 2015

None of the objects I place on this window ended bird strikes, least of all the Audubon Society's predator-bird silhouettes. New research suggests that hanging vertical cords may be the better answer: see Field tests show parachute cords deter bird-window collisions. The researchers note, “The effectiveness of vertically hung parachute cords to deter bird collisions is attributable to the critical spacing (3.5") between cords, and also as important is the placement of the cords over the surface facing the outside.”

[Thanks to "BirdSaver" by Henge on the Instructables website.]