Backyard Bird--Blue-headed Vireo

Blue-headed Vireo

This isn't the way I like to add birds to the backyard list: This afternoon, while sitting at my desk, I heard a thump on the window too loud to be a bug bouncing off it. I rushed outside and found this Blue-headed Vireo sitting stunned in the grass.

I've seen birds hit windows before and when they're standing up, they're usually all right; they just seem to be gathering their strength after an unexpected shock. Still, Shari and I didn't know how long it would take to recover, so we got a small box and a kitchen towel and Shari transferred the bird to the lined box--she was going to put it out of harm's way somewhere (not in the house, where the cat would be a big a problem), but it almost immediately flew out and away. Good.

Window strikes kill millions, if not billions of birds every year. (How many are starlings, I wonder?) Glass-faced skyscrapers are a major culprit (just the other day my brother found a Golden-crowned Kinglet on the ground in front of the Citicorp Building) I wouldn't think the relatively small windows we have would be a problem but obviously I'm wrong. If I get any more strikes I'll have to consider putting a decal on the window to break up the illusory clear space--but I really hate the way those decals (they're usually hawks) look. And it will block my view to the outside.