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Do you ever watching birds swooping around your car on the highway and think those things are daredevils.
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Look! They are playing with us.
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Definitely not doing that though, they are freaking out because they almost died.
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Hey everyone, thanks for watching Dnews today.
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I am Trace.
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As my old buddy Anthony used to say, "Birds are weird."
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There's nothing worse than sitting in your house and hearing the smack of the bird hitting the window.
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Last time it happened to me, there was a moment of fear, then a realization of what really happened, and then sadness and pity for the poor little robin that hit the window.
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There's a lot of feels here.
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Now I've recovered though, I am kind of angry.
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Cause, what's up bird? Can't you figure this out?
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Real talk: Nah, they actually can't figure this out.
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Each year, as many as 340 million birds smash into cars, and over 10,000 hit airplanes in 2013 alone.
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Building windows claims another 100 million every year.
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There's two things afoot here.
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Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology says scientists believe birds hit windows because they think it's a hole in the building.
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Birds, like many animals, can't really understand reflections.
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so when they see trees and sky reflected in a window on a house, they believe it to be a tunnel through which they can see the other side.
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Birds, especially those attempting to escape from predators, will fly into the glass trying to get to safety.
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In fact, most animals can't recognize themselves in a mirror.
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The only known species to be able to do so are humans and some great apes, and perhaps dolphins, elephants and magpies.
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Cause there's no coincidence that these are also some of the most intelligent species around.
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When an animal like a cat sees a reflection, they don't smell another animal, so they know somethings up.
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But reflection in general are pretty confounding for most creatures.
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For birds though, cars and airplanes are a whole other problem.
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But the problem is more than just the birds being in the wrong place at the wrong time
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Birds fly fast, but they're kind of slow in the head.
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Based on a comprehensive analysis published last year in the Journal of Wildlife Management
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it appears that the speed of our transportation network is what claims the lives of millions of birds every year.
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A study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that animal-vehicle collisions occur as vehicle speeds increase because of the way birds look for predators and other threats.
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Note that they only used the brown-headed cowbird.
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But they found that as the birds flew toward a video of an oncoming car, it initiated escape behavior at a specific distance from the threat.
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They figured bird brains are calculating the distance to the threat and not necessarily the time before they impact it.
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Thus, when the car speed increased, the birds couldn't get out of the way.
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When speed were low, less than 40 miles an hour, birds were mostly fine
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but once they exceed 74 miles an hour, the birds were pretty much screwed.
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Thinking about it this way, it's incredible that any bird can dodge an airplane accelerating to 160 or more during the takeoff, like 747 has to.
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As I mentioned, most birds aren't able to recognize window reflections.
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In the spring, male birds often swoop in to attack windows because they believe the bird they see in the reflection is encroaching on their breeding grounds.
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Penn states says this is the most commonly seen in mockingbirds, robins, and cardinals.
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And usually stops once they find the mate.
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so if your're annoyed, you should go be that bird's wing man, get it?
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Have you ever been in a car when the bird hits?
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Let us know down in the comments, and let us know what you did about it.
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There are a lot of different ways to handle it, but don't go grabbing the birds. That's usually bad.
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Make sure you subscribe more Dnews, thanks for watching.