Birds worst enemy: Double glazed windows.

Sally (age) and husband Duane (age) Arnold of Kendal, Cumbria; arrived home at the end of last week to discover a huge Owl imprint on their bedroom window.

Experts from the The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) state that the bird is likely to be a Tawny Owl due to its size and shape.

Owl imprint impressioned on Sally Arnold's bedroom window, Cumbria.

The imprint itself is created by ‘powder down’ a substance found in the feathers of many birds. 

Most birds which crash into windows would leave a smudge of powder down for their impression.  Yet this photograph clearly displays this birds eyes, wings, feathers and chest in ghostly detail. 

Val Osborne, Head of the RSPB’s Wildlife Enquiries team said: “We don’t very often see an imprint of a bird that’s flown into a window that’s this clear and where it’s pretty obvious exactly what kind of birds it is.

The RSPB comment on their website that double glazed windows pose a greater risk as they produce clearer reflections. To overcome these reflective collisions the RSPB sell bird self-adhesive window silhouettes which start at £5.10 - the most effective being a bird of prey, the Hawk. 

Despite the fixtures aiming to reduce these occurances, the RSPB stress, ‘please understand that these measures will greatly reduce, but never totally solve, the problem.’

With window strikes being an issue, the RSPB give a short description on what to do if you discover a bird that has flown into a window on their website.

As for the victim, Sally added: “Fortunately, there was no sign of the bird and we can only assume that it had flown away probably suffering from a headache!”


Peter de Souza
Daily Mirror