The "The Attack of the Reds" Story

Jack Hubley, host of "Wild Moments"

It was an ordinary day.  6:03 am and ...... I heard her at the bedroom window.  She's late today!  Yesterday she hit the window at 6:01 am.  Startled both Carol and I.  As I look out the bedroom window today I can see her push off the walnut tree thirty yards away and with a few flaps of her wings she ...... oh my gosh!  She hit the window and bounced back into the arborvitae that is at window height.  Can't understand why she doesn't break her neck.  Few minutes later I see her again leave the branch on the walnut tree and head towards the bedroom window.  Again .....BANG!  But this time I see what she is doing.  Just as she hits the window she raises her feet in front of her and her feet take the full brunt of the impact.  We knew this would happen.  She has been following the same routine for the past week just as daybreak arrives.  She hits the window, falls into the tree, makes another quick attack on the window from the arborvitae, then flies back to the walnut tree.  Then, maybe after another twenty or thirty minutes she repeats the same routine.  I'm amazed the female Cardinal hasn't hurt herself.  A few weeks ago Carol and I saw a segment on local TV which featured naturalist Jack Hubley in his show "Wild Moments."  He talked about the reason why the Cardinal will fly into windows.  Seems that in spring, all birds are staking out neighborhood territories.  They don't want any other Cardinals to share the same territory with them because it could deplete the nesting possibilities or the food sources.  We have a bird feeder maybe twenty-five yards from our bedroom window as well as the walnut tree.  The Cardinal may tolerate another bird of a different species, but not another Cardinal.  When a male Cardinal spots another male a chase takes place with the dominate male winning the territory and the female Cardinal.  Something like "Capture the Flag" I guess.  Eventually, if the dominate Cardinal sees its reflection in our window, it believes it is the original infiltrator and will attack the window.  As for our male and female, they have been frequenting our bird feeder for a few weeks, thus the reason for the early alarm clock in the morning.  As soon as the birds have mated and the nest has been built, the early morning wake-up calls to Carol and me will allegedly cease.  But why the female making the attacks on the window in this case instead of the male?  Seems we must have a sissy male Cardinal or a very over-aggressive female Cardinal.  Or, maybe a pretty smart male who plays dumb and lets the female take care of that chore for him. Wonder if there are Cardinal psychologists in the yellow pages.  So, how do we stop this nonsense in the morning until they find time to mate and build their nest?  My friend Jerry told me he and his wife Sue had the same problem a few years ago and taped a black plastic trash bag over the window.  Guess that's my next move.  That or I'm going to have to change my work schedule and start earlier in the morning.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  PS - I have included a few photos, but I had a hard time catching the impact so I found another one on the Internet which I used to show you the violence of the impact.
  

Male Cardinal hitting a window.

Our female on the second step and male on the 4th step.