There's this cardinal who lives in our neighborhood. And every morning, between 8 am and 8:15, he attacks our bathroom window. Every morning. And by attack, I mean he flies to it, taps it with his beak, then flies onto the branch of a tree nearby. Then does it again. And again. It'll go on for most of my morning routine, although he quits when I'm showering (which is polite of him, I must say, since a bird could probably get to an angle where he could see me showering).
It's not that he doesn't see the window - we have the curtains pulled on it almost always (see showering above). So, I don't know. I don't understand what he's getting out of these attacks on my windows. They never did nothing to him.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:There's this cardinal who lives in our neighborhood. And every morning, between 8 am and 8:15, he attacks our bathroom window. Every morning. And by attack, I mean he flies to it, taps it with his beak, then flies onto the branch of a tree nearby. Then does it again. And again. It'll go on for most of my morning routine, although he quits when I'm showering (which is polite of him, I must say, since a bird could probably get to an angle where he could see me showering).
I refuse to envision this with a bird instead of a fully outfitted senior ecclesiastical official.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
*grin* Same here, Sam. Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Well, it's Jhai's fault with the capital C in the subject and all.
I would say it sounds like he sees himself and he's attacking that other red bird except for the fact that he seems to be doing it just when you're in there. Which is pretty psychotic sounding, actually.
Posted by Tara (Member # 10030) on :
I'm pretty sure it's an omen.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tara: I'm pretty sure it's an omen.
It certainly sounds omen-ous.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
He's trying to give you a message. You may be in terrible danger. You should invest in some ammunition and non-perishable supplies.
Of course, given that the zombie apocalypse is upon us and could break out any day, that's really just sound advice for anyone.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
He's seeing his reflection in the window, and trying to get his "rival" to stay away from his territory. Quite frustratingly, his rival is equally aggressive towards him. We had cardinals do this on car mirrors, windows, any reflective surface. Dad named one of them Cardinal Banganini.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
My first thought was that one of the players for the Arizona Cardinals had gone roid rage.
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
It's the Spanish Inquisition!
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I never expected it.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
An update on the cardinal:
I came home from work at 2:30 am on Friday (arg), and basically went straight up to bed. The bathroom light was turned on briefly for me to brush my teeth and take out contacts.
After settling into bed, I hear loud rustling coming from the bathroom. And bumps. I didn't get up to see what the hell was making it, but the (presumably) cardinal was making enough noise that it sounded like it was actually IN the bathroom. From the sounds, I think it was on windowsill, fluttering its wings like crazy. And then doing full body crashes into the window. Repeat at least a half hour - I eventually fell asleep.
I think the bird may intend to kill us in our sleep, if he can just get through that piece of glass.
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
Dude--open the window! He's a magic genie cardinal and he will grant you 3 wishes.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
If you want it to stop, do something to make the window unreflective. Maybe you could affix a white piece of paper on the outside of the pane just there. Our Cardinal Banganini banged on her windowpane for several years running. We never bothered about her because the pane upon which she chose to vent her aggression was in the basement, so the sound was muted enough in the living areas of the house not to be very annoying.
Another Mad Cardinal perched on the car windowsill and pecked at the driver's side mirror, continually leaving a trail of guano down that side of the car. Finally my mother got in the habit of covering that mirror with a sock each time she got out of the car, which fixed the problem. No more guano decoration.
I feel bad for them for wasting so much of their time in pointless self-combat. It's some sort of analogy to humankind, I sometimes think. Birds are very visually oriented, similar to humans, so apparently the mirror can completely fool them. Kittens quickly learn that mirrors don't have real cats behind them, because they have no smell of an actual cat. For cats, smelling is believing.
Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
Eh, I'm more bemused than anything else.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jhai: Eh, I'm more bemused than anything else.
And yet who knows how much bad karma you are stocking up by allowing the cardinal to mistakenly hate you? Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Who says it's a mistake? *suspicious glare*
Posted by Hank (Member # 8916) on :
Perhaps he DID see you showering. Would that explain the blind fury?
Posted by Traceria (Member # 11820) on :
He's not the only psycho bird out there. My grandmother's kitchen window used to get attacked in a similar fashion (though I don't know that her attacking bird was on any kind of schedule) for a few years in a row. We always kind of assumed it was the same bird. She tried putting out one of those fake owls to scare it off and eventually some shiny ornament kind of things (believe I'm recalling this correctly) to attempt to do the same. At this point, the only thing that probably ended the crazy cycle was the bird dying. We can only assume.
Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
Where I used to live, I had a blue jay that would do that, exactly. This went on for a couple of hours every morning, every spring for two or three weeks, for several years in a row.
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
My mom had a cardinal that would repeatedly hurl itself into her bedroom window at all hours of the day. It lasted several years until we moved. I don't know if it's still there.
Posted by vonk (Member # 9027) on :
Those must be resilient birds. The only bird I've seen fly into a window didn't have an opportunity to try again.
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