It started innocently enough. Yesterday I had walked into the kitchen just as a cardinal flew into the window. Not just any window – there are twelve in my kitchen altogether – but the one on the southeast corner. Well, one bird - it happens, right?

Then, when I got up this morning and went to close that same window, I noticed feathers and some flesh from a bird on the lower corner. OUCH. That had to hurt. I look down and sure enough – a dead bird. I’m not sure what kind – maybe a night heron. This made me sad. Why has my window started attacking birds??

And just now I heard another thunk. I get up, look below the window, and there is another dead cardinal. I think it’s one of the cardinal children from the family that lives in back. Sheesh – that means I’ve known this cardinal since the day it left its nest.

The island I live on is a wild bird preserve, so this sort of behavior from my window is definitely a problem. What causes a window to turn bad? Was I not cranking it correctly? When I open and close the locks, am I being too rough, too quick? Maybe I should take more time when opening and closing the window.

A more likely theory is that this window does not like my taste in blinds. Well – what can I say about that? I had never had to buy blinds before and wasn’t too interested in it – I just wanted something that would never require maintenance or replacement. And I got the same blinds on all of the windows in the house. The lady at the store seemed to think that was odd – but how much time did she think I’d spend making decisions about blinds?? I just had to cover the windows so that the neighbors won’t point and laugh when I walk around naked.

And how does this window lure the birds to it? Does it call to them on a frequency I can’t hear? Does it simply hide better than the other windows? Or does it somehow appear to birds to be the way to the worlds most wonderful birdbath?

I guess the only question now is: What am I going to do about this homicidal window? Can such things be exorcised? Or do I need to replace the whole window? What if I were to buy new coverings for it – and wouldn’t it look funny if one window in the kitchen had skull-and-crossbones drapes while all the others had wood blinds??