After the first snow my wife and I went out to the cabin. When we pulled into the driveway I saw something laying on the front sidewalk, near the front door. Even from a distance I could tell that it was a large bird of some sort. It was dead. My initial hypothesis was that it hit one of the windows, fell to the ground, and roll a few centimetres. Walking about 20 meters away from the house I could see that the large two storey front entry windows reflected the brightly lit forest perfectly. The bird, flying at full speed, did not see the glass. It only saw the reflected forest. It likely died instantly.

On subsequent visits I heard birds striking the windows, but have not witnessed further casualties.

I often see bird silhouette stickers placed on large windows to prevent birds from flying into them. I thought that this might be something we should install at the cabin, but wanted something a little more aesthetically pleasing than the standard bird-scare stickers.

I made several distinctive bird owl, hawk, and harrier, silhouettes from 6 ounce leather dyed black. I only used a single coat of dye and let some of the leather show through so the shapes are not pure black. For fun/education, I stamped the species name of each bird into the leather using 1/4 inch high block letters.

I will try installing the bird silhouettes on the inside of the windows using suction cup hooks. If the bird silhouette don’t work inside the windows I will move them outside and may have to hang them from string.

We really enjoy all the birds that frequent the cabin. I’m not trying to to scare them all away. I’m just trying to keep them from hitting the windows.