Annotating bird window strike when no organism is present

General
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I’m visiting extended family and noticed a very clear impression in the dust of an exterior window of a screech owl. It is the result of a window strike. (You can see beak, eyes, chess feathers, and open wings. There’s no question on the identity.)

I’d like to post a photo of the dust imprint, if only as a cautionary tale. Any suggestions on how to annotate this? I try to annotate observations that don’t include the organism, but none of the provided categories apply here (bone, molt, feather, construction, track, etc.). I do see observational fields I can use to indicate a strike and perhaps this is where I should leave things.

Here’s some irony - I gave the homeowner some anti-strike window decals last year for Christmas… the gift was well received because strikes have been an issue here before, but they were never installed! I’ll be installing them during my visit this year and suppose I’ve learned a lesson - if I give the gift of anti-strike decals, I ought to give the gift of installing them as well.

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An identifiable impression an organism leaves in the dust is very similar to a track. The more general term is sign, and this sign is ( I agree with you) not quite a track, but it is close.

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This sounds like a good thing to photo and post. No problem.

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Thank you - it looks like I can add an observational field for “Presence of Life” and fill in a free-form text box, which will allow me to still annotate using this field even though it won’t be through the default mechanism. I hadn’t though of this as a “sign” either so that is helpful as well!

I will close the issue.

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There’s also a project you can add these observations to: Bird-window collisions

I normally add collision observations to the project but I wouldn’t annotate as a track, as it doesn’t seem to quite fit the situation.

I don’t know which decals you got, but (and this is as much for anyone else reading the thread, as you may know this) the ones that look like birds of prey are not effective, unless you put so many as to leave no more than 10 cm between each one. American Bird Conservancy has more information on effective and simple methods to prevent collisions here. I’ve installed the white vinyl dots and have had no fatal collisions on those windows since installing them.

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