By REBECCA BILLS
MANY locals have struggled with cockatoos attacking their house, but for Menzies Creek resident Heidi Schlennstedt it’s a pesky kookaburra that won’t leave her alone.
Last year around spring time, Ms Schlennstedt noticed a kookaburra attacking a window on her house nearly every day until it eventually broke.
“He would start at 7 in the morning and was very obsessed with that window particularly,” she said.
Unsure of what was making the kookaburra attack the window, Ms Schlennstedt contacted a bird expert and was told it may be due to mating behaviour and to put a sheet in front of the window so the kookaburra could not see its reflection.
“We put a sheet up in front of it and he would just fly around the sheet to get to the window,” she said.
“We really love birds, but we just don’t want them attacking our window anymore.
“My husband has lived in the area for 50 years and we built this house in 1987 and we just find it odd that this has never happened to us before until last year.”
Ms Schlennstedt said after the window broke she did not see the kookaburra until just a few weeks ago.
“We thought he had got a big enough fright to leave our window alone,” she said.
“We think it may be a different one this time, the one last year was fatter than the one that is visiting us now, but it is still just as obsessed with the window.
“I have a daughter and a son who are both young adults and we were all a bit concerned about the one that broke the window, so having another return we would like to solve the problem.”
World of Animal Welfare said kookaburras that continually hit glass windows was usually because the reflections of the glass appeared as a termite mound or as another kookaburra and they want to drive it away.
The group recommend to draw blinds on the inside, add blinds or shutters to the outside, move a potted plant to the front of the window, hang a sheet in front of the window or hang a silhouette of a bird of prey near the window.
Streeton Ward Councillor Noel Cliff said this was a timely reminder that we need to learn to live with nature and not expect nature to live with us.
“It’s human nature to want to feed the birds – you can’t help but to love wildlife, but just be careful that you don’t create a monster and they start to rely on you,” he said.
“Although, I do know people who have fed kookaburras that haven’t caused any problems.”
