It is a loud thud from the front of the house. I run from my bedroom and see telltale feathers sprayed across the entryway window. I race downstairs and yank open the front door. There, at the bottom, of the steps lies a motionless robin. Its body is still warm but it is clear that it won’t fly again. I remind myself that an instant death is better than the prolonged death of those that manage to fly away only to die from internal injury soon thereafter. Still, it saddens me to hold the robin’s fragile body in my hands.

The terrible reality of maintaining a bird-friendly yard is that there is more greenery to falsely advertise open space in window reflections and, worse than that, there are more birds to mistake this reflected greenery as desirable flying space. It is inevitable that some will fall prey to this deception, ultimately smashing to their death like this poor robin.

I glare at the UV butterfly-shaped decal adhered almost exactly where the robin’s feathers mar my window. I had switched from the cheap and easy solution of old CDs strung up with fishing line, a solution I recommended in my book Attracting Birds to South Florida Gardens, to these more expensive decals because I tired of the incessant sound of the discs knocking against my windows at all hours. My UV decals had been silent, attractive enough and initially effective. Less than a year later though, it seemed the deterrent powers of my decals were as ephemeral as the delicate flitting of the butterflies they were shaped after. How was I to recognize that the pronounced glow, designed especially for avian vision, had expired? My eyes are human. I vow to find a more permanent fix before yet another bird dies on my front stoop.