On a cloudy morning after a nighttime football game that shone bright lights on low clouds, there were birds left behind at the Noble Research Center. The first I found was this hatch-year Clay-colored Sparrow (fat = 2):
Then there were 3-4 birds trapped around the north entrance, including a House Wren. Is this the same little guy hanging around for weeks?
There was an obviously stunned Orange-crowned Warbler as well. The bird was sitting low and unresponsive, but it perked up when I picked it up.
The bird looks okay above. Had it remained this way I would’ve counted it as merely “trapped”. When I set it down, however, the bird did not fly away and it actually had trouble standing. For cases like this – in which a trapped bird has trouble standing – my policy is to consider the bird as a casualty. I’ll be interested in checking tomorrow to see if my suspicions are correct.
Bird-Window Collisions at OK State 