Is a Bird Repeatedly Flying into a Window an Omen of Death?

About 4 years ago around springtime we had an unusual event occur on our little farmhouse; a Robin seemed to desire to make entry into our home. She would fly 3 to 6 feet away from our window, then fly at it until hitting it, then would back off and repeat the process. When we told others about this strange bird repeatedly flying into a window, this is when someone told us it was a bad omen. How bad? The Old Wives tale says it means someone in your family is going to die within the year.

We searched this behavior on Google and sure enough we found plenty of articles about birds flying into windows as being a premonition of death. Before the year was over, my father passed away from Alzheimer's. I knew he was ill, he was well into his 80's so it was no real big surprise, but in my nearly 60 years of life I have never witnessed such an event until this happened, so in 60 years time was this just a coincidence or is there some mysterious sense out there that tells animals and in this case a bird, that death is coming to a loved one?

On the other hand we also found evidence that perhaps this is just a territorial behavior caused by the Robin seeing a reflection of herself in the window and trying to chase it off. Based on this possibility we did hang a sheer cloth over the outside of the window to reduce the reflection and the Robin stopped her strange behavior, so maybe this was all there was to it, but again the question of only once in 60 years and that once just happened to occur within months of a death in the immediate family. Coincidence?

So was this an omen or simply a natural reaction to a reflection in the window? Perhaps we will never know, however all around the world are stories of birds and the omens they represent. Native Americans saw birds as messengers, especially Hawks, Eagles, and Crows. Were these stories and wives tales generated by repeated incidence where the same results occurred? Is there a real source or power behind the behavior of animals and their significance to us and those around us? Maybe or maybe not, and we may never know, however if you have a bird repeatedly flying into a window at your house, maybe you should take care to be sure that you make the time to share and show your love to your loved ones. In the end, maybe this is the real message of such a strange behavior.