Stephen Prower
Well-known member
Joachim
Spooking: Viewing from behind window glass
We're hi-jacking the thread--In my post I expressed no opinion whether or not spooking is a monocular versus binocular issue--, but it's good sometimes in passing to discuss practical birdwatching issues like spooking or viewing through window glass, as well as the more popular comparative optics!
There are two sorts of spooking at feeders.
One is where birds fly off when you look at, or lay binoculars on them.
The other is when a bird that is flying in on course to feed at the feeders sees you, and veers off away from the feeders and out of the garden or into nearby cover.
I experience both sorts of spooking when looking out through my windows, or out in the garden, but in order to keep things short, treat only the first sort in answering your point re window glass as follows:
1. The window glass in my house is post-1953 but pre-float glass. I don't have double-glazing. The garden window of my living room is a large 'picture' window.
2. Last year a courting Goldcrest spent a month attacking the garden window. He seemed to be running a one-man lek! This year a courting Long-tailed tit spent a couple of weeks displaying at the window. Both birds were largely tolerant of my quietly watching and photographing them.
But that is the only time that I can recall when birds not preoccupied with feeding or interacting with other birds have ignored my looking at them through window glass.
On the other hand if I don't look at birds in the garden, but get on with tasks about the house, as I observe when I take a quick glance out of the window, they get on with life in the garden regardless of my presence.
Ie it is being looked at that the birds don't like. Some don't mind it so much if you just look at them quietly with the naked eye. But look at them through an optic, and few will stay long before leaving the garden.
And in the case of my house, window glass makes little difference to that behaviour.
3. That said, you are right to suppose that standing back 8 metres from the window in the shadow of the room should make a difference to the behaviour of the birds.
Standing back does indeed make them less sensitive to my presence.
But the improvement is most likely explained by my thereby removing myself outside their flight distance*.
Thus some birds, even at 8 metres back, do still fly off when I lay the binoculars on them.
Stephen
* I use the term 'flight distance' for the distance when a bird's response to threat changes from flight to close observation and caution. In the presence of food the distance may be expected to reduce from the bird's normal flight distance
Spooking: Viewing from behind window glass
We're hi-jacking the thread--In my post I expressed no opinion whether or not spooking is a monocular versus binocular issue--, but it's good sometimes in passing to discuss practical birdwatching issues like spooking or viewing through window glass, as well as the more popular comparative optics!
There are two sorts of spooking at feeders.
One is where birds fly off when you look at, or lay binoculars on them.
The other is when a bird that is flying in on course to feed at the feeders sees you, and veers off away from the feeders and out of the garden or into nearby cover.
I experience both sorts of spooking when looking out through my windows, or out in the garden, but in order to keep things short, treat only the first sort in answering your point re window glass as follows:
1. The window glass in my house is post-1953 but pre-float glass. I don't have double-glazing. The garden window of my living room is a large 'picture' window.
2. Last year a courting Goldcrest spent a month attacking the garden window. He seemed to be running a one-man lek! This year a courting Long-tailed tit spent a couple of weeks displaying at the window. Both birds were largely tolerant of my quietly watching and photographing them.
But that is the only time that I can recall when birds not preoccupied with feeding or interacting with other birds have ignored my looking at them through window glass.
On the other hand if I don't look at birds in the garden, but get on with tasks about the house, as I observe when I take a quick glance out of the window, they get on with life in the garden regardless of my presence.
Ie it is being looked at that the birds don't like. Some don't mind it so much if you just look at them quietly with the naked eye. But look at them through an optic, and few will stay long before leaving the garden.
And in the case of my house, window glass makes little difference to that behaviour.
3. That said, you are right to suppose that standing back 8 metres from the window in the shadow of the room should make a difference to the behaviour of the birds.
Standing back does indeed make them less sensitive to my presence.
But the improvement is most likely explained by my thereby removing myself outside their flight distance*.
Thus some birds, even at 8 metres back, do still fly off when I lay the binoculars on them.
Stephen
* I use the term 'flight distance' for the distance when a bird's response to threat changes from flight to close observation and caution. In the presence of food the distance may be expected to reduce from the bird's normal flight distance
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