Hi All,
A friend has asked me about this experience. Does anyone have any ideas and
comments
Wendy Moore
Location is Riddells Creek, near Mt Macedon, NW of Melbourne, Vic.
"There’s also been a Fairy Wren flying into the windows at night over the last
few nights – seemingly after insects. I’ve never seen or heard of this
behaviour before.
Fairy Wren:
On Sunday night I was at a meeting about frogs and came home to Gill saying
there’s a bird flying into the lounge window. I put on the outside light and
saw three Fairy Wrens (one male, two female) sitting in and around the lemon
tree – this is a vantage point from which they could see the window. From then
I only heard one fly into the window. I guessed that maybe one was young and
just out of the nest and ‘confused’. However, last night (after another meeting
– flora reserve committee this time) I came home to lots of insect activity
with many moths and other insects on the window of my study where I was doing
things on the computer (and photographing the moths and spiders etc). Only once
did the bird fly into the window while I was there but I was lucky enough to
see it go for a large Moth – which was either too big for the bird or it
missed catching it. It did actually peck the moth’s abdomen though (the moth
was flapping wings – an activity it does when threatened). The large moth was
certainly its intended. I did hear what I think was the bird flying into the
window later on (it could have been a Goat Moth as they are pretty hefty and
make a decent bang into windows.
My initial thought on Sunday was the bird was flying into the window with no
purpose – but now, knowing they probably aren’t too window savvy, I think they
were after insects and possibly flying at or through the unseen window to get
them.
To your specific questions:
There were no bright outside lights on (except on Sunday when I was looking for
them – I turned them off when I saw who it was). The only lights on were
internal (with curtains open).
The time was about 9-10pm so after dark.
The large Moth was on the sill but the bird didn’t land as such, more a fly-in
and straight out routine (more of a hover – but obviously not a real hover –
wings were flapping throughout. It did hit the window slightly but not hard
this time. Other times it has hit quite hard – but it/they seem to come back a
few times so they were probably not hurt by the collision.
We too often get birds flying into windows, with some deaths (not for a while
thank goodness).
We also often get Tawny Frogmouths flying into the windows for moths in
spring-summer. They’re great to watch. We once had visitors from overseas and
went outside to watch them. At one point they flew for a moth and actually
brushed our visitor’s trousers on the way to its prey!
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