Undergraduate at Oregon State UniversityLast spring, Jayshaun Talbert received a call while gathering evidence for his study on birds that fly into windows and die. While sitting in a college dining hall, friends saw a Cooper’s hawk crash full speed against the glass wall of the building, perplexed because it had a clean route.
The bird was dying after breaking its wing and falling to the concrete sidewalk.
Talbert hurried over to the structure. He described the scene as quite nasty. The second-year college student studying Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences indicated that a cloth was placed over the bird’s head because dark areas help birds feel safer and more at ease.
The 20-year-old Talbert, who has been trained to euthanize birds, understood the bird needed to be put down because of his work at a wildlife center in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, and his avian study since moving to Oregon over two years ago. Instead, the bird was removed by campus security.
As a registered wildlife rehabilitator and veterinarian, Talbert could have done nothing more to assist the hawk.
However, people can prevent birds from colliding with glazed surfaces, mistaking them for unobstructed flyways, by implementing bird-safe measures at their residences and places of business.
According to the National Audubon Society and the Bird Alliance of Oregon, window strikes kill about 1 billion birds annually in the US, with almost half of those deaths occurring at private premises.
Birds are moving in both urban and rural areas, Talbert noted when he shared details about OSU’s Lights Out program and his research on window crashes at the Willamette Valley Bird Symposium on Saturday.
The necessity for bird-friendly design was brought to light by international news reports of Flacothat, a Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped from Central Park Zoo in New York and died in 2024 after hitting with a skyscraper, Talbert said. The 1,000 songbirds that perished after colliding with windows that were lighted from within along the Chicago riverfront during the fall migration in 2023 did the same.
Experts advise reducing artificial lighting both indoors and outdoors that confuse birds and making transparent and reflecting surfaces more visible. Birds are unable to perceive reflections of the landscape and an open sky as a gateway because of screens and carefully positioned markings on grid-less windows.
Move the bird to a safe location if it hits a window. Bring the unconscious bird to a nearby wildlife rehabilitator or call the Bird Alliance of Oregon’s Wildlife Care Center hotline at 503-292-0304 if it doesn’t recover on its own in an hour.
To protect the stunned bird from being startled, approach it from behind. Then, using clean hands or gloves, place it in a shoebox or paper bag lined with a newspaper, paper towel, or cloth to keep it warm.
On iNaturalist or the expanding Global Bird crash Mapper, users are urged to record bird crash fatalities or injuries.
Steer birds away from buildings
On Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Southeast Portland, Oregon, a male and female house finch are seen feeding on seed.Graves, Mark/The Oregonian
In order to prevent birds from being drawn to artificial light during nighttime migration, experts with Audubon’s Bird-friendly Buildings initiative and others advise closing blinds or curtains. They also advise placing feeders and birdbaths more than 30 feet away from buildings or within three feet of windows so that startled birds cannot crash into the glass.
Birds may also become confused by houseplants placed in front of huge glass panes. Relocating houseplants from windows where strikes are frequent is advised by the Oregon Bird Alliance.
Additional anti-collision strategies include as follows:
Mark glass: To alert birds to the presence of glass, there must be clear indications on or around it.
To reduce the reflection that birds perceive, install screens, UV-reflective window film, and paracord or transparent mylar strips and squares to hang outside windows and sliding glass doors. The distance between markings should be 2-4 inches.
Talbert prefers feather-friendly quarter-inch squares or circles that are either gray or black and visible to birds without obstructing natural light or the view.
Dim lights: During migration seasons, Portland, Eugene, Bend, and other cities have implemented Audubon’s Lights Out program, which reduces unnecessary illumination. Light pollution causes birds to become disoriented, which makes them vulnerable to collisions or weariness and ultimately leads to death.
Utilize the BirdCasttool to receive notifications of heavy bird traffic overhead during migrations from mid-March to early June and late August to mid-November. These alerts are based on real-time radar data.
Verify that the outside lighting is pointed downward and appropriately protected. Select an LED with warm light (less than 3,000 Kelvin).
Turn off floodlights and attractive outside garden lights, add automated motion sensors, and, whenever feasible, replace nonflashing illumination with strobe lighting.
Use task and area lighting rather than overhead illumination, turn off lights in higher stories, cover windows, draw blinds, or lower sunshades.
Janet Eastman writes on trends and design. You can follow her on X@janeteastman and contact her at 503-294-4072 and [email protected].
