Can we talk about the guy at the Wild Birds Unlimited in Boise who warned me about my feeder setup?
I was in there last month buying seed and he asked where I hung my feeders. When I said near my big kitchen window, he said that spot kills more birds than cats do in some yards, since they see the reflection and slam into the glass at full speed. He sold me a roll of window dots for $12 and I put them up that same afternoon, and I haven't heard a single thud since. Anyone else had a close call with window strikes, and do those decals actually work long term or did the birds just get used to them?
Sounds like he was trying to make a sale to me. Bird strikes are real, sure, but the idea that your kitchen window is worse than outdoor cats is a stretch. Cats kill billions of birds a year in the US, that's a known number, and a few window hits in one yard don't come close. Those dots at twelve bucks are mostly a feel good buy, and plenty of birds figure out glass in a week or two no matter what you stick on it. The bigger deal is where the feeder sits, not the stickers. Move it either three feet from the glass or way out past ten feet and you fix most of the problem for free. Funny how he didn't mention that part.