Persistent raven's visit to Inuvik woman's window serves up a scare
Birds are known to get confused by their own reflection, says expert
Tanya Gruben was relaxing in her Inuvik home last Sunday afternoon when a dark shadow appeared, tapping at her window.
"I was so scared I went to grab a hammer, or my meat hammer, to bang on the wall and I was panicking, so I grabbed a potato masher," she said.
But her visitor was persistent. A persistent raven, to be exact.
It flew away and returned to the window numerous times, spurring Gruben to try a new method of deterrence — her car alarm — but that only seemed to make the raven even more keen to get in.
"I was beeping my car alarm like every five minutes, then it went to the other window, which I had … open, beside me, and it tried to hit that window too," she said.
"I got up and shut that window because I was freaking out."
As the raven continued its efforts, Gruben took to her laptop. She made a post on Facebook, asking if any of her friends might have suggestions to send the bird on its way.
Several people shared their own stories of birds trying to get in their windows, others asked her if she'd seen Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror film The Birds (she hadn't). Nobody offered any advice that was useful.
"So I actually ended up going to almighty Google," said Gruben.
Saw its own reflection
Gruben found out on Google that ravens don't like patterns. So she took a zigzag-patterned placemat she had lying around and taped it to her windows. That seemed to do the trick. Now, she says, those placemats aren't coming down.
Gruben said her Google research told her the raven may have been attracted to her window because it had seen its reflection.
Bob Bromley, a bird expert based in Yellowknife, backs this theory. He explained in an email that it's an especially common occurrence in spring, because adult birds are busy defending their nesting territories.
They can attack their images to the point of fatal injury.- Bob Bromley, bird biologist
"[They] often confuse window reflections as intruders to be repelled. They can attack their images to the point of fatal injury from contact with the window."
Bromley said robins, in particular, are famous for this.
In the fall, he said, it's "probably a young raven flummoxed by its own reflection in the window."
Back in Inuvik, Gruben joked it took awhile to get over the inclination that for her raven — the visit was personal.
"I was going golfing after and every crow I heard I was like, 'Ugh, that's the one, it's going to come after me — it's coming for me."
With files from Wanda McLeod