#window strikes

Building collisions kill 300 million to a billion birds each year, and many of these needless deaths can be prevented.

This Bird-Safe Buildings Act is a common-sense solution to help birds avoid collisions with buildings by promoting bird-friendly materials and design features at federal buildings.

Window strikes may not be as big a problem as habitat loss, but what pushes a lot of species to the brink of extinction is assaults from all sides. Birds are dealing with habitat loss, cat predation, competition with invasive species, pesticides, lead poisoning, poaching, and window strikes, among many other pressures. Any one of them would be enough to be a big problem, but all of them together? It’s a receipt for the loss of entire species.

Thankfully window strikes are one of the (relatively) easier ones to fix. And these small actions can make a huge difference to migrating birds, as well as those that hang around during the day. Every bird that survives is another that can potentially contribute to the next generation of that species; every bird lost prematurely is a permanent loss to the gene pool. Doesn’t it make sense, then, to do whatever we can to help them?

Species portrayed: Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii), northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), varied thrush (Ixoreus naevius), blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata), house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus), snake plant (Dracaena trifasciata), human (Homo sapiens), Pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus)

Transcript under cut.

Maybe you’ve seen the headlines: migrating birds collide en masse with a Texas office tower’s reflective sides, or crash into the gauntlets of glass we’ve erected in their flight paths through New York or Chicago. But this problem isn’t unique to big cities or migration season. Each year between 365 million and 1 billion birds die from collisions with windows across the United States. The overwhelming majority of those window strikes occur at residential and low-rise buildings, with fewer than 1 percent caused by skyscrapers.

Anyway, stuff like mylar strips, masking tape and window decals can help birds avoid hitting your windows. Taking that little step can help me avoid having to wait around and test birds for rigor mortis in broad daylight with witnesses who will remember me as the bedraggled creature loitering in town, poking dead birds' legs with dog poop bags on my hands and taking pictures of the bodies.

Today I picked up a small dead bird. In the hustle of humans trying to get somewhere. Just like me. Cradled it in my palm. Still warm. So innocent. So small. To get here It may have flown a thousand miles.

I took it to a garden bed In the middle of Columbus Circle. Placed it among chrysanthemums. Under the pillar of a man whose hubris spelt our doom.

At the pillar of Man’s legacy of doom Spoke of a wheel I turned Round from Central Park to the glass Tower of Time Warner Deutsche Bank Center Its façade the killer of a thousand birds Each year, reflecting our disregard.

Our disregard. Where to start. Worried about a little bird? A dust speck On this mote of a planet. We boil it. The planet, that is, as we hustle to get somewhere. Feeling nothing as we charge ahead

Despite everything.

Can you see it? There in the window. Our hubris outpaces us our palms outstretched A small dead bird in hand.

I donated its still-warm body to the campus museum where it will live forever as a specimen.

I have written before about the problems of migrating birds and window strikes. Here is some good news from some US cities that are turing their high rise lights off at night during migration season. It seems to me that turning office lights off makes good energy sense as well so it should be popular with building managers and conservationists.