Some birds will find their way into the bird netting. Most will be deterred. At least, that has been my experience. I found a little bird (vireo?) caught up in the netting but was able to release him. Netting is a good way to go for small tree, but it's tough to wrap around a big tree. I still haven't tried "scare tape", and response to my queries have yielded mixed results. In sum, it seems to work while it works, but the birds seem to catch on. RB

Brain swelling is what I've been thinking. When I attempt to pull out it's wing, he tries flapping them and I still can't see anything. I have tried giving it water but will try again. Do you have any idea what I can give it to eat? I don't know what to do for him but if he's dying, I'd rather him die in the house where it is warm and safe, rather than dying outside in the elements. He doesn't seem to be in any type of distress, but who knows, I know nothings about injured birds. Thank you for trying to give me some guidance, he's so helpless and fragile, it just breaks my heart.

Our Robins usually show up around the end of January, early February. What they find to eat with all that snow on the ground makes me scratch my head. Saw one today hopping along the edge of the sidewalk probably looking for any worms dislodged by the heavy, wet, melting snow. Hope he had some luck. I once saw a sting of birds like that, thought they were never ending, but it didn't last for hours, more like 15 minutes. Your sighting must have been impressive!

When birds consisently fly into a window, likely they are seeing a reflection that 'fools' them. For example, if a bird launches from a feeder and sees a blue sky reflected in the window, and maybe a tree top, he goes for it, and then thud! I have 4 upstairs windows facing the same direction and one of those have been hit twice by mourning doves (not the smartest bird to begin with). Two years ago, while on a ladder doing maintence on the house, I spotted the problem. When I viewed this window at bird's eye level (nad from the outside), it appeared to be open space. In the room and opposite the window was a dresser with a large mirror. The mirror was tilted at the precise angle to reflect the open sky, and when viewed from outside, the window seemed to be a hole in the wall open to the sky. One fix would have been to change the mirror angle, but this is not effective since two of us use the same mirror and it gets adjusted to the individaul user's needs. The solution was to prevent the mirror from being seen from the outside. The same effect happens if the window glass itself becomes a reflector. About bird crap: Birds often take a crap when they launch into flight, and especially if startled. This can be observed using binoculars. I had a roommate in college who related his first hand experience with this phenomonem. In his town, blackbirds become a big nusance in the fall when they form huge flocks and inundate the local trees in town in the evening. One fine evening, the block fathers decided they had enough, and their other efforts at discourgement had failed, so several of them stood in a ring around a tree loaded with birds and they, on cue, fired shotguns into the tree. My friend, wishing to see a flock of hundreds of birds take flight, stood under the tree facing up. Yep - very bird took a crap and he headed for the shower.