Solving (we hope) a Bird-window Collision Problem

Jul 10, 2014

By Steve Blight

The house we live in has quite a few windows. The main purpose of building our house near Sharbot Lake was so that we could live in a rich natural setting. Having a lot of glass allows tons of natural light into the house, affords great views into the forest, and helps us feel more connected to the natural environment. All is good.

Unfortunately, birds and glass don't mix well at all. I have been aware that having lots of glass in a bird-rich environment might result in birds striking our widows, with the accompanying terrible results. However, up until recently we weren’t aware of any bird strikes at our house at all -- not to say there weren’t any, rather that we had no evidence that any had happened. Then in April, all that changed.

First a little about bird-window strikes. Some estimates suggest that the number of North American birds killed in bird-window crashes range as high as 100 million per year. Some birds seem to recover quickly and fly off; others die instantly; still others take up to several hours before they seem to recover sufficiently to fly off. Unfortunately even some that appear to recover are believed to die later from injuries sustained in the crash. One expert estimates that 1 out of 2 of all window crashes end up with a dead bird.

One morning in April I was sitting at our kitchen table and a heard a muffled but loud "thud" from above my shoulder -- and right away I knew it was a bird. We went outside, fearing the worst, and lying on its side on the deck looking quite stunned was a tiny Golden-Crowned Kinglet. It was alive but doing poorly. After a frantic search for what to do (thank you Google), we determined the best thing to do was to capture the bird carefully with a towel, and place it in a small, partly-closed box located in a sheltered outdoor spot away from predators and give it time to recover. So that is what we did, crossed our fingers and waited. Within about an hour, the kinglet had flown off, to an unknown future.

The very next morning the sorry story was repeated with a Hermit Thrush. Same solution -- towel, box, wait two hours and it was gone. A couple of days later was the last straw -- within the span of several hours a Hairy Woodpecker then a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker had hit the same window, and received the same box-wait treatment.

Since the kinglet window strike, I had been searching for a solution with increasing desperation, and dreading the awful thud of another bird strike. It seemed so wrong to me to have chosen to share space with birds that come from as far away as Brazil and then be responsible for their deaths. Something had to be done.

Fortunately there is a great source of information on bird strikes available on the All About Birds website, sponsored by Cornel University in New York State (http://www.allaboutbirds.org). In my opinion it is the best website dedicated to North American birds out there, and a quick search on window strikes led to all sorts of useful info on why birds strike windows and measures that can be taken to reduce their incidence. I would very much encourage anyone that is upset about bird strikes at their home to visit the site. There isn’t enough space here to repeat all the good advice, but three things can really help. First, try simply moving your feeders and birdbaths to new locations. Bird strikes usually occur at particular windows, so moving feeders farther away (minimum 30 feet) from them may solve the problem entirely. You can also try placing your feeders much closer to the glass—if a feeder is just a foot or two from a window, birds may still fly into it, but not with enough force to injure themselves.

Second, avoid apparent visual tunnels. Bright windows on the opposite wall from your picture window may give the illusion of a visual tunnel through which birds may try to fly. Try making one window less transparent by keeping a shade drawn or a door closed, or by altering the lighting inside the house.

Third, find a way to break up the reflections caused by large expanses of glass. Note that single stickers of hawks rarely work -- it isn't the fear of the predator's silhouette that keeps the birds from the widow, but the fact that the reflection is broken up. Multiple stickers are needed to be effective. Another way is to hang dangling objects from the outside of the widow -- the inside of the window won't work as it does not break up the reflection. The All About Birds site provides many different creative solutions that may work for you.

Our solution was to stretch a curtain of thin hanging cords, spaced 4 inches apart, across the group of windows where the bird strikes occurred. The design came from another website called Acopian Bird Savers (www.birdsavers.com). This site provides instructions on how to make the curtains as well as offers them for sale. Being a moderately handy guy and always open to saving money by doing things myself, I set out to custom-make some bird savers. I bought some white vinyl 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch trim and sticky-backed Velcro from Home Depot, ordered the prescribed drab olive-coloured 1/8 inch nylon paracord on-line from Ropeshop.ca, enlisted my creative daughter's help, and got to work. After about a day's work, the finished product was ready for installation

The picture accompanying this article illustrates the final product that we installed on the outside of our windows. It ended up being fairly inexpensive, not difficult to make, and easy to install. We put the rope curtain up at the beginning of May, and the evidence so far is encouraging -- no bird strikes on these windows since. A Veery recently crashed into a different window (it flew off after one hour of the box treatment described above), and this window will get its own rope curtain treatment in short order.

I’m recounting this story because window strikes are a serious problem for our birds, and there are inexpensive and practical ways to reduce their incidence. I am hopeful that with a little effort (and quite of bit of Paracord!), our family will be able to safely share our living space with families of birds for many years to come.