Tried window decals vs netting and netting won hands down

My house has these big south facing windows and I was hitting 3-4 bird strikes a week last spring. Everyone on here seemed to swear by those UV decals so I spent $30 on a set, put em up exactly like the instructions said. After 2 weeks I still had a robin knock itself silly on the glass right next to one of the decals. Swapped to some cheap bird netting from the hardware store for $12, stretched it a foot out from the glass, and I haven't had a single strike in 6 months. Has anyone else had bad luck with decals like I did?

2 comments

2 Comments

fiona3321mo ago

...and I swear I read somewhere that birds don't actually see those UV decals the way we think they do. Like they see them but it doesn't register as a barrier, more like a weird smudge or something. I had a similar experience with the decals, five strikes in a month even with the fancy holographic ones that were supposed to look like spiderwebs. The netting just makes so much more sense physically, it's an actual physical barrier they can feel. My neighbor tried those window film strips in a grid pattern and still had a cardinal hit so hard it left a feather imprint on the glass. Netting for the win, no question.

margaretk891mo ago

Did you try putting the netting a few inches off the glass, fiona332? That gap stops them from even reaching the window and it still lets light through.