birds! how to prevent bird strikes AKA bird-building collisions

In September 2018, in Ballard, a woman sat at her desk in the upper level of her home, near a window, when she was suddenly jolted in surprise by a loud bang at the window. “What was that?” she thought. Then she noticed it, a small round mark on the window with a feather attached, pressed so hard into the window that the feather blew in the breeze without coming off the window. A bird had unknowingly flown headfirst right into the window. She looked onto the roof which jutted out 3-4 feet in front of the window, and sure enough, there was the stunned bird. What a heartbreaking sight. She looked on the internet to see what she should do. The bird sat stunned for several minutes, but within 10-15 minutes flew off. She continues to wonder if the bird was ultimately OK or if it was injured badly enough to weaken it or potentially end its life.

Statistically, millions of birds die each year from window collisions, and almost half of them are hitting home windows. Birds aren’t able to see themselves but they see the reflection of the sky and trees and assume they have a clear and safe path in which to fly. Even small windows can be dangerous for birds, as they routinely fly through very tight spaces at very high rates of speed. Would you be surprised to hear that birds routinely fly between spaces of only 5-6 inches at speeds of 30 miles an hour or more? No wonder these injuries are so common. Birds are frequently killed in these collisions or are stunned and die of internal injuries later.

Besides being incredibly beautiful and enchanting creatures, birds fulfill ecological functions including reducing insect and rodent populations, reducing damage to crops and forests, and helping limit the transmission of diseases such as West Nile virus, dengue fever, and malaria. They help in pollinating plants and dispersing seeds.  Many of the birds we see here in Seattle migrate each year from Central America and Mexico and play an important role wherever they are.  You can see the flyways that move across North America here at the Boreal Bird website.

What can be done to help these fast flying creatures avoid injuries and even worse? We’ve got three great resources to help reduce the likelihood of bird/glass collisions:

BIRD-FRIENDLY DESIGN RESOURCES

Bird friendly design strategies are becoming recognized as a part of sustainable design, and there are many ways to incorporate this type of design in a cost-neutral manner. The American Bird Conservancy and New York City Audubon released this document on Bird Friendly Building Design detailing extensively on birds and the built environment, including problems and solutions pertaining to light, glass and policy around bird friendly design as well as how to evaluate collision problems in existing buildings.

QUICK AND AFFORDABLE WINDOW PROTECTION

There are several options you can inexpensively add to the windows of your home in order to prevent bird disasters. Opaque tapes such as ABC Bird Tape, CollidEscape, Solyx Bird Safety Film and Feather Friendly’s do-it-yourself tape are some options to add horizontal or vertical stripes to your windows. You can add netting and various bird deterrent curtains outside of large windows too. Window decals typically don’t help since they are spaced too far apart; the birds fly into the glass between them.  Learn how You Can Save Birds from Flying Into Windows in this document from the American Bird Conservancy.

COLLIDESCAPE

A great resource for bird strike deterrent items can be found at CollidEscape.org’s webpage. They’ve got products ranging from territorial aggression (when a bird attacks its own reflection in a window) to bird window strike deterrents, to energy saving and privacy products. Screens and tapes in a range of colors and styles and you can even try out some samples to see what’s going to work best for your home or commercial building.  The following is Collidescape being installed at Cape May Community College.

Here at the live-work-play office, we’ve installed a bird friendly garden and lots of local and migratory birds visit us. We’ve installed CollidEscape fritting on our office windows and have screens installed over larger windows in the building to prevent bird strikes.

Any of these resources can help you get a good idea about how common it is for birds to fly into windows causing death or injury, what you can do at home about it, and what’s going on in the greater world with sustainable practices and policy to protect these precious creatures.  Together, we can create a safer, more enjoyable home experience for our birds and ourselves.    The Seward Park Audubon is also a great resource for more information about local and migratory birds in our area and they have fantastic programs for both kids and adults.

An image from the web at Sialis showing Collidescape installed over a picture window.  Inside you don’t even notice, it looks like a screen.