The Cardinals From Hell

Every morning around 9 a.m., the firm tapping sound would begin, surfacing from the living room at my parents' house. They would hear it every 30 seconds or so and would round the corner to see a cardinal (and sometimes its mate) dive bombing the window, hitting it hard as hell, from the adjacent tree. This would continue on and off for about an hour or so every day.

A long-time Audubon person, I was soon on the receiving end of the call as Parents tried to figure out what was going on and what could be done.

It's not unusual for birds to fly into windows, either catching insects on the wing or not realizing the window is an impermeable surface separating the inside from the outside. But these strange cardinals do it over and over again...and then some. And they make it a daily exercise. Odd, to be sure.

Parents tried all the usual stuff like putting up a visual distraction on the window to be sure the birds knew it wasn't an extension of the vegetation. But this hasn't worked. Nothing has worked.

So to put it all into perspective, I'll tell you this started YEARS ago. Just to be sure we're on the same page, that's like 4 years ago.  Now, the birds aren't starting at 9 a.m., they're starting at 7 a.m. And they'll now return for an afternoon encore performance. It's crazy.

We're wondering: are these the same birds, or have they now passed the behavior onto their offspring?  Are the birds insane?  Are they seriously mentally challenged, taking the bird brain to a whole new level of minimalism? Are they trying to remove a parasite or something? Who knows. They're like bird masochists.

It's terrible to think about what they're doing to themselves. And if you're a human inside the house, listening to that sound over and over again is pretty killer too.

In their latest attempt to derail the bizarre avian activity, Parents mixed up a water/ Cayenne pepper concoction and put it all over the window and the tree. We'll see what that does...we'll just see... My hopes aren't too high. I'm betting that the cardinals from hell will prevail in their mystery quest.