The Problem With Birds and Glass

Glass windows and birds are not a good match.

A personal anedote: I was visiting my mother a couple of years ago and a bird hit her front window. She said that this had been happening often recently. She had aa couple of glass butterflies hanging in the window, and I realized that the birds were thinking they were food. After we removed the butterflies, the bird hits stopped.

Unfortunately, you can't remove a glass building, although as this article and podcasst point out, there are some measures that can be taken to reduce the severity of the problem.

Window strikes are among the most serious threats to birds in North America, killing an estimated 1 billion birds every year. In New York City, between 90,000 and 230,000 birds die annually from collisions with the city’s buildings, according to NYC Audubon. But recent legislation requiring bird-friendly glass on new construction offers a hopeful precedent.

This has come up in my area as well. We live near Frechman's Bay, which is a major bird habitat, and more than one developer has been trying to put condos up along the shore. So far, local opposition has prevented this, and the effects of a tall building on migratory birds has been one of the factors cited by the opposition to the projects.