Save the birds!

The landscaping for the ponds is proceeding well.

Here Cameron (L shovel) and Steve (R shovel) are competing with each other in the Shovel Olympics. :))) Actually they are just smoothing out the dam around this pond.
Unfortunately, we have found a few dead birds around the house. This one was on the deck outside the great room. What a shame!

Note the red flashes under the wings - if you know what kind of bird this is, please email or leave a note in the comments. I think it eats seeds because of the shape of the beak.

According to flap.org, birds fly into windows and kill themselves because they can't see the window and think they have a clear path ahead. The best prevention is to have drapes. We weren't going to get drapes in the dining room, but have decided that we are going to get some kind of sheers to reduce the hazard to birds....

But what to do about the feature window in the great room??? In order to attempt to protect the birds from flying into the glass there, we taped up some silhouettes of flying birds. This is supposed to be mostly ineffective, according to the Toronto Humane Society web page.

flap.org (Fatal Light Awareness Program) talks about a film that can you apply to the exterior of the window. This costs US$3/s.f. so is a bit costly.

If you have any cheaper ideas but still esthetically nice, let us know.