“Street bird”by bookfinch is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Have you ever glanced out the window of a room you were in and suddenly see a bird fly right into the window, only to fall out of the sky? Well there’s a pretty good chance most people have and it’s a lot more common than you might think. Each year in the United States alone, up to 988 million birds die by colliding with man-made structures, remaining the largest human-related deaths in birds. These occurrences are most likely to happen during the fall when migration season is starting, when birds are making the long journey from northern parts of the U.S and Canada, to the south. On the Ohio State campus fall 2018, 173 birds were found due to building collisions, with only 11 of them still alive. These events concern many people as it strikes endangered species of birds as well.
Why does this happen?
To understand why this happens, we need to look at a bird’s perspective when it comes to flight. Rather than relying mostly on sight like humans do, birds use a combination of vision, flying patterns, and other senses to direct them in where to fly. Birds are not always looking in the forward direction, as well as their vision is best suited to detect movement, which means birds could miss the chance of noticing what’s in front of them when flying. Also, when it comes to windows in buildings, the reflection coming off it can look real enough to a traveling bird.
What is being done about this?
There are a few things you can do at home to help prevent this as well as some methods in research. Some examples any homeowner can do are turning lights off at night to reduce reflections, add a variety of decals on your window to help break up reflections, keep bird feeders away from windows, or simply allow your window to remain dirty to more visibility (although this isn’t ideal). In the video below, National Geographic portrays research to help stop these collision events from occurring.
There is also a group called ‘Lights out for Birds’ which is dedicated to stopping building collisions for birds. They provide numerous methods for diverging light sources in your home to help migrating birds during the appropriate seasons. They have programs all around the country including one in Columbus. More information can be found on their website: https://www.audubon.org/conservation/project/lights-out
Sources:
Bookfinch. “Street Bird.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 22 Dec. 2009, www.flickr.com/photos/53585158@N00/4205391104.
Geographic, National. “Can We Stop Millions of Birds From Crashing Into Windows? | National Geographic.” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Dec. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMgfuhD2cpo.
Ohio State University. “Ohio State News.” A Deadly Strike for Migrating Birds, The Ohio State University, 11 June 2019, news.osu.edu/a-deadly-strike-for-migrating-birds/.
Vincent, Alice. “Study Explains Why Birds Crash into Buildings.” WIRED, WIRED UK, 4 Oct. 2017, www.wired.co.uk/article/bird-collisions-research.
“Why Birds Smash into Windows.” EarthSky, 28 Apr. 2017, earthsky.org/earth/why-do-birds-collide-with-windows.