A huge magpie flew into my window

[Smoresandtoast]

So, I was lying down after having a bath and got a huge shock. A bird smacked off my window, I could see it's full silhouette through the blinds and full wing span smacked against the window, and then it fell. I ran over and opened the blinds to see a massive magpie swiftly flying a way.

How did it not die? Jesus the velocity! i have seen birds crash into things before, but not like this, and not in the years that we have lived here.

The strange thing as well is that this happened on my parent's first anniversary of death, right before due to go to the cemetery

Is this a bad omen, or just a coincidence?

a particularly tiring bath?

It's a coincidence. But a shock nonetheless! x

I hope you saluted and said "Good morning Mr Magpie, I hope your wife and children are well".

No, my kids bath toy went off in the middle of it 😂

I didn't lol. I was too started and looking to see if it was hurt, I presumed dead, just saw it bolting away!

At least it didn't sit in your garden and pretend it couldn't fly.

We had a pigeon a few weeks ago fly into my window, and then sat in my garden running around for two days. I had to box it and take to the vets as thought the wing was broken, the vets said nothing was wrong with it!
Birds are a bit silly.

This happens a lot at my house. On the side of a hill, shiny windows reflecting the sky or trees. Not just magpies, either.

They might be badly injured, but will fly away if possible as that's their safety response.

Oh Jesus, I have heard of them getting startled, but it is supposed to wear off within 30 minutes. Yours sounds like it had PTSD! 😱

Why would it be a bad omen? Sorry that your parents died at the same time.

I don't know, somebody said this to me when I told them. Probably the wrong person to tell!

They're sometimes associated with bad luck in British superstition. But I think that's fairly silly. Magpies are gorgeous, chatty birds. I would think it a good omen that the bird was only stunned and went on its way!

Funny because my son told me this morning he had 2 magpies sat on his second floor flat kitchen window ledge so I was looking up whether 2 magpies were unlucky or lucky.
It really is a shock when a bird flies into the window though isn't it?
I get it a lot , especially when fledglings are learning to fly. It's amazing more don't get killed. I'm afraid I've found a couple of wee sparrows bodies after they've flown into the window. But never any of the bigger birds. Thank goodness

One for sorrow

It was a coincidence, not a message . Sorry to hear about the anniversary, it’s always a difficult time.

but it happens, I had a pigeon that flew into my sitting room window then lay on the ground twitching. It was clear it had some fairly serious injury so I geared myself up to doing the kindest thing as I didn’t want to leave it in pain ( eek!) , armed myself with gloves and carrier bags, but luckily by the time I got out there it had done the decent thing and died without my help. The outline on my window was very beautiful though.

It happens to us a lot, I'm regularly cleaning "ghost" shapes of birds off our glass wall. They are almost always ok. We have had 2 dead birds on the lawn in 15 years of living here, and probably 20 birds a year fly into the glass at speed. Like you, I'm amazed to see them fly off as normal!

This happens to us too. We seem to be wood pigeon capital of the district so they are the usual culprits, though we have a few magpies too.

They slam into the patio doors on the back end of our living room. It happened once when I was working at my desk there one day and scared the absolute shit out of me!

One once did it at 5am, causing the door to vibrate enough to set the burglar alarm off! Fucker! I had to get up and sort that out, and I felt some trepidation too because at that stage I didn't know what had caused it. The bird had flown off but had left a large imprint of itself on the window.

It's coincidence. They usually just stun themselves and fly off once they have recovered enough. The occasional one has broken its neck and died but not too many of them thankfully.

Sorry for your loss @Smoresandtoast I'm assuming you're not in Canada, they have a massive problem with this
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/photography/bird-photographer-of-the-year-2024-winners
🤞 Mr Magpie made it home safely. I love corvids 💜