I have a combination of party streamers and tape which has improved the avoidance rate but not completely stopped strikes altogether. Tried all sorts over the years and willing to try anything now.
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." Sir Terry Pratchett
We don't get birds hitting the windows at all, I wonder what the difference is, we have two huge single pane windows but all the others are "cottage" windows with multiple panes, it might be that or perhaps because I rarely (read never) clean them and we get a lot of dust and pollen so maybe the birds can see them!
We have windows in the barn with small panes and several of the small panes are broken, many different birds use them as entry and exit so they must be able to see the glass there since they go for the hole rather than the glass.
With ours I think it is because the windows reflect the open countryside at the back of the house. So to anything approaching the window it looks like they are heading towards an open forty acre field.
We tend to have this happen more in the winter. If the birds are just stunned I put them into a dark covered box for twenty minutes by which time they are recovered and ready to fly off. The only bird I couldn't do that with was a sparrowhawk who was too big for the box! It soon recovered on its own and flew away.
We don't usually have very many bird strikes but a couple of year ago a pair of magpies developed the technique of flying at the bird feeders to drive the smaller birds into the conservatory windows and then grabbing them while they were stunned. In general they then flew away with them but on one occasion they both attacked a stunned greater spotted woodpecker which I rushed out to rescue. It flew away but not sure whether it was injured as they had pecked at it pretty viciously!
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