WE SPOTTED this Treecreeper climbing up the crab apple by the pond, meanwhile a Nuthatch had flown to take a sunflower heart from one of the bird feeders. Our delight at seeing these two infrequent visitors in our back garden at one soon turned to shocked horror as the Treecreeper hurtled like a missile towards the feeders then continued, hitting the patio window and instantly killing itself by, as far as I can tell, breaking its neck.
I didn’t want it to have died in vain so I picked it up to draw and also checked the internet and phoned the British Trust for Ornithology just in case someone might be studying the species and might have a use for a fresh casualty for analysis, but they didn’t know of any study at present, unless the bird had died of disease.
Length: 12.7 cm
Beak: 1.7 cm
Tail: 6 cm
Weight: 8 grams
I picked up a treecreeper today that head-banged my patio windows – it took about ten minutes to gradually recover enough to fly from my birdfeeder where I placed it to the house wall, which was a relief, because 12 years ago one killed itself and it was a sorry sight. It has stayed on the wall for about fifteen minutes, so it is clearly taking some time to recover, but is looking around so should be OK.
I dont know if treecreepers are especially vulnerable to window strike, but I do get plenty of strikes from songbirds and most birds just recover very fast, this one is taking longer.