So, some kind of finch has just tried to land in the xmas tree.

Sadly it failed to notice the patio doors in the way. Fail.

Now it's lying on the patio twitching.

Shall I:

a) Leave it as it might recover?
b) Go and dispatch it humanely?
c) Wake the cat up and send it out to finish it?

dispatch the cat humanely but leave the bird to it's own

if it's a wee bird and you handle it then it may just die of shock anyway

i dispatched a rabbit humanely after a neighbours cat left it for dead outside our house, i had to walk down the street so the missus couldn't see me do it, i stood by the side of the road waiting for a few cars to pass then realised i was carrying a struggling rabbit and a hammer, bet i looked a little suspicious 😆

In my experience (our windows seem to be a magnet for this in the summer) if it's still, it could just be stunned and might recover, if it's twitching, it's not in a good way and necking it might be the best way forward. I'd love for someone to come and tell us all otherwise so I don't have to do anymore next year. (can't gte the wife to do her share).

Throw it into next doors garden.

I think you are about right onzadog. If you put silhouettes of hawks on your windows it stops the little birds from doing this

to the OP – it might recover if its merely stunned – but it might have broken its neck. However birds have very mobile necks so it is hard to tell if you pick it up.

Either it will die soon or it will recover and fly away

Leave it.
Usually, if they don't die straight away they recover. Though it might take up to 45 mins.

We get quite a few hit our window, and that's the pattern we've found.
We don't interfere with them because for small birds the extra stress might finish them off.

pluck, gut, add to casserole.

Cheers everybody.

Will leave it and see what happens. Poor thing.

I though for a moment we might have to call fatsimon to this thread.

I'd leave it. Birds can be tough wee b****rds sometimes.
I was at work one day , passing a customers patio, when all of a sudden I heard BANG!, then another BANG!- a blackbird had hit the window, followed by a chasing female sparrowhawk, and they were both lying dazed as **** waiting to recover(it was like that scene in Pulp Fiction with Ving Rhames and Bruce Willis after the car crash!)
Unfortunatly for the blackbird, the hawk recovered first…

Can we have an update on this please.

We had a blackbird (feathered, not US Spy Plane) crash into our patio doors earlier this year. It was in a pretty bad way but recovered after an overnight stay under a bush in the garden.

We've had at least a couple of doves or pigeons hit one of our windows over the last 4 years – but there's never been any evidence of it (or even any post-moggy remains) other than the outline on the glass.

Heard a blackbird smack another one a while back, poor little bugger sat dazed for about half an hour before making it into some nearby ground cover…I hung around in the kitchen 'til it did, since since our sideway's a thoroughfare for the local cats…

put it in the bog, flush. sorted.

I had to move upstairs as the pesky kids are home from school.

Looking from the upstairs window it seems to have gone.

Flown or eaten, I'm not sure.

When I was a kid at primary school we had one of those semi-permanent wooden classrooms, fully glazed both sides. We used to get regular bird strikes, to the point we didn't even both to get up and look out the window. We did come in one day and find an impressive imprint of a rather large bird that had crashed into the window with wings outstretched, could see all the feathers etc in minute detail in the dust 🙂

well? what happened?

Had a similar bizarre experience one night several months ago driving to the pub with a mate. As we turned a sharp corner on a single-track road onto a slight downhill, I spotted something in the road about 75ft away, just at the limit of the headlights. I slowed up, and the animal started towards me. As I got closer, I realised it was a hare, so I stopped. The hare, on the other hand didn't, and ran full-tilt into my front numberplate, with a loud bang. I backed up and got out, and the hare was twitching and scrabbling on the ground, and ended up on the grass at the side. I didn't know what to do, but it suddenly lay still, so I left it. Coming back from the pub a couple of hours later, the hare had vanished, so either a fox had it, or it woke up with a bloody sore head, and a vague recollection of a bright light filled with stars, and wandered off. Had a pheasant hit the front of my car once at forty mph, with a huge bang and a cloud of feathers, but I never found a sign of it after twenty minutes of looking.

We used to have this as they tried to fly through our lounge window -solved when the blinds went in. It slices them aahahaha.

Strangest bird strike I had was paddling in our double in the Sounds one eary summers morning. Chopping along at pace when on the RHS we can see some gannets flying fast across the water on a collision course. One of them absolutely nailed itself on the front of the kayak ! I managed to scoop it up in my paddles as we went past and dumped it on the front deck. Poor bugger was seriously confused for about 2 minutes then hopped onto my spraydeck, i thought it was going to try and peck me but it just lay down for another fewe minutes then flopped off into the water and then flew off. Poor thing, bet it had a monster headache for a few days !