Tall buildings, especially those lit up during the night, cell phone towers, and the like kill many more birds than most people realize.
Modern architecture frequently features large stretches of reflective materials. Who could blame a bird thinking it could fly right through the above windows in a new building at a local college?
And new homes such as this one built in 2017 often feature windows on both sides of the house corner (on the left), making it look like a perfect pass-through. It may look cool to people, but it’s a death trap for birds.
Even windows in a conventional house can have enough reflections that they look like the real thing to a fast-flying bird. We don’t often have a problem with birds hitting the windows, thank goodness, but some people do.
In the past, goldfinches occasionally hit our bay window. Hearing that sickening thud is distressing especially since even if they’re able to fly away, they often die from their injuries.
Other than making sure my senators and representative know that I support the Bird-Safe Buildings Act. This isn’t something I can do much about, but some people are working to encourage buildings to turn off the lights at night or take other measures. (See resources below)
The best solution
Perhaps the best solution for many window situations is the Acopian Bird Saver. This is actually quite appealing aesthetically, so it’s a win-win for birds and people!
Here’s how we made them, and here are some other examples we’ve found.
Other solutions
One thing we’ve done is not wash this bay window. The dusty window doesn’t create reflections and we haven’t had any collisions since. (Note: This looks pretty bad, but this was photographed in the sun at an angle that would best show that it wasn’t clean. It actually not that noticeably dirty.) This is the only window birds had crashed into, so I guess we don’t have a good excuse for all the other windows in the house we haven’t washed!
Choosing windows that have screens on the outside rather than on the inside can help. If you compare this window with a screen with the similar window in the photo near the top of the page that doesn’t have a screen, you can see that it breaks up the reflection. But if a bird does hit it, it also cushions the impact. This of course only works if the window style fits the location in the house.
Another simple, low-cost option (in this case used on a very large sun porch window without screens) was to simply hang bird netting over the window by attaching it to cuphooks at the top and bottom of the window. This was left here all year. The photo was taken in a way to make the netting visible, but in real life it wasn’t very visible at all and didn’t hamper people’s enjoyment of the porch.
If all else fails, simply leaving the blinds open but down should help, though I don’t know if there are any studies about this. It seems like the slats would be visible to a bird and would discourage them from trying to fly through.
Lights out
Some communities are participating in a Lights Out campaign during migration so birds don’t become disoriented and fly into windows.
Tall buildings are a huge problem, but for homes, Audubon recommends:
- Turning off exterior decorative lighting
- Extinguishing pot and flood-lights
- Turning off interior lighting, especially on higher stories
- Down-shielding exterior lighting
- Installing automatic motion sensors and controls
- Assessing the quality and quantity of light needed, and avoiding over-lighting with newer, brighter technology
Another window issue
An occasional problem has been male robins attacking our windows, thinking their reflection was a competitor. This happens only some years and only for a week or two in the spring. Neither the windows nor the robins have been injured, but it can be distressing to see and hear. We’ve found that simply taping some newspapers to the windows solved the problem. (Pretty ugly, but it’s only for a week or two while they establish their territory…)
Resources
- American Bird Conservancy:
- How to prevent bird-window collisions – a comprehensive resource!
- Creating bird-friendly legislation – Very important topic!
- Why birds hit glass
- Products and solutions database – rated by threat factors
- Strategies for reducing bird collisions – Recorded webinar 2022
- These seven bird species are most likely to collide with windows
- Cities leading the way on bird-friendly building policies
- Audubon:
- Dark Sky:
- Phys.org:
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds:
- Why Birds Hit Windows – and How You Can Help Prevent It – and how to help birds that have hit windows
- Acopian:
- Acopian Bird Savers – Have been found to be effective and can even be a DIY project
- FLAP Canada:
- Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP Canada)
- Bird Watcher’s Digest:
- Washington Square News:
- Bloomberg News:
- Architect’s Newspaper: