The Wind River Canyon is just like everywhere else in America; wild birds fly into and die from hitting windows.  When I hear that all too familiar glass-ringing thud my heart skips a beat, and I hope as I slide on my shoes that I find nothing in particular.  Feathers stuck to a window is a bad sign, but even that doesn't mean a fatality.  All too often we will find a beautiful wild bird that has a broken neck.  Sometimes they're dead already, or most distressing is when some American Robin/Portrait ~ Wind River CanyonPortrait of an American Robin-Photographed in Wind River Canyon, Wyoming. amazing, flying creature dies in your hands.  

     Ages ago, when the first young Robin expired in my warm hands on a summer's morning, I was devastated.  I sat on my cabin steps and cried big crocodile tears.  Now it's a hardship that we live with, and try to avoid using assorted techniques.  But I still feel a sadness when I know it's my window that killed that little bird.  In this week's Wind River Canyon Blog we will not be looking at photographs of dead birds, no matter how beautiful they were in life.  I don't do this to photograph death, I do this to celebrate life in this Wyoming canyon.

     Let me run some unbelievable numbers at you for just a moment.  From a 2014 report that accumulated data from 23 studies, it was determined that over a million birds die every single day in America from flying into windows!  This respected study found that between 365 million and 988 million birds die annually from window strikes.  A million a day?  Now you know why we don't see as many birds as we think we should.

     Yet, some of the most mind-blowing moments I've had in this remote canyon have been from the coolest birds that lived.  Like the afternoon a Loggerhead Shrike crashed into a window while hunting prey.  He was alive all right, with talons that dug into my leather-gloved hand.  His black, raptor-like beak looked ferocious.  But he just gripped my hand and stared into my eyes, drawing a little blood from my hand, I never noticed, till he went off his merry way.  He seemed awfully curious about me, and I him.   Downy Woodpecker (f)-Wind River Canyon, WyomingDowny Woodpecker photographed in the Wind River Canyon, Wyoming.

     Another incident from my personal journal; the time a little female Downy Woodpecker flew into the living room window, while I was ignoring a boring football game. Nursing a sore back the journal said, I ran out into the snow and saw her lying face down in the deep stuff, the white feathers from her downy breast matching the color of the mountain snow.  A woodpecker's neck is strong, and has to be, because they drill holes in trees!  She gripped my sweatshirt with her strong talons, and eventually moved to my upper-back.  She fell asleep there, on my back.  When she was ready to resume her life in the wild and flew to a nearby juniper, I photographed her beauty close-up.  Here is her amazing portrait from my website.

     Most of the time the little birds live, but sometimes they don't.  These are buried under the trees they loved.  But one early morning on a cold fall day, as I was standing very near a big glassed door, an older Peregrine Falcon was chasing a younger Peregrine Falcon out of her territory.  The adult Peregrine missed the corner of the cabin.  The young falcon hit the middle of this large pane of glass, and it rung like the gong behind that rock band.  I couldn't believe what happened in front of me with coffee in hand.  The young falcon was dead, curled up with those powerful wings at his sides.  This is a sacred bird to many native Americans.  I hiked up the mountainside and placed his remains under a cedar.  Let Mother Nature have this little rocket ship back.  

      Bullock's Oriole,female-Wind River Canyon, WyomingPhotographic Portrait of a Bullock's Oriole female in the Wind River Canyon, Wyoming. At other times these widow crashing victims are living memories that can change a persons life; like the time a young female Oriole hit very early in the morning.  She was just out of the nest and didn't know her way.  I thought she was dead, but she proved otherwise.  

     This little yellow and silver-grey lady sat in my hands for over an hour, till she regained her senses, looking into my eyes the entire time.  She seemed so sure I wasn't going to eat her; she seemed so confident and regal, yet curious.  In time she too had to leave and go her own way, and I was glad to see her fly away.  This little Oriole was downright gorgeous, and they've become a favorite of ours.

     We hang crystals in the windows, and that seems to reduce the number of fatalities.  I've tried plastic lizards with suction cups, and that amuses friends and hummingbirds; they fly right up to take a look!  Yes, both of those species.  They make stickers of all kinds that sometimes work, and sometimes don't.  

     Some birds just cannot be deterred from killing themselves, but the real killers are the skyscrapers in cities.  These giant walls of reflective glass are the worst culprits.  Technology should provide a solution, but at a cost.  The billion-dollar Vikings stadium will have over 200,000 square feet of glass, yet they wouldn't fork over a lousy one-million more to protect the birds.  For the next generations that are reading my blogs....what will you do to help save what remains of our wilderness and her beautiful residents?

Wind River Canyon Blog written by Michael John Balog - Hogbats Photography, Wind River Canyon in the state of Wyoming.

Visit HogbatsPhotography.com for more award-winning bird and wildlife photographs from the Wind River Canyon. 

Thank you.