Zoo, university join forces to tackle birds' biggest foe: windows

A new research project in Winnipeg might hold the key to saving birds from flying into windows — it's just not researcher Laura Burns' favourite way to start her day.

Now that researchers from the Assiniboine Park Zoo and the University of Manitoba have standardized the way they track birds that die by crashing into windows, the data collection process is simple, she said.

"You just walk around the building in front of windows where you want to check, and look on the ground [to see] if there are any birds that have died," said Burns, a research conservation specialist at the zoo. "It's a very sad way to start your morning."

Burns said the zoo and the university had been doing similar work separately for awhile, and only recently came together to create a standard for how bird-window collisions should be monitored. That way, they'll be able to get a clear sense of what kind of windows, and in which areas of the city, pose the biggest threat to birds.

"We were both working on the same problem in different parts of the city," she said.

While most people have had a bird or two fly into their window, Burns said they probably don't realize how serious the problem is on a larger scale.

Estimates of how many birds die from window collisions every year in North America hovers right around 1 billion, she said.

"So if we can start working together to fix this problem, we can make a big difference," said Burns.

Fall migration most dangerous time for birds

For people looking to make a difference, now is the best time to do it — fall migration of the most dangerous time for birds, Burns said.

"There are a lot of young, naive birds that have just hatched over the past summer during the breeding season, and are heading south for the first time," she said. "[They're] more likely to hit a window on the way."

Burns said a wide variety of songbirds, like sparrows, warblers and robins, are the most affected by the threat posed by windows.

Big windows that reflect nearby trees or tall buildings with the lights left on at night can both easily confuse young, migrating birds into flying into the glass, she said. But the biggest difference people can make is still by taking steps at their own homes.

"Even if you have only one bird a season that hits the window at your house, if everyone in the city has that happening, there are way more houses than there are skyscrapers," said Burns.

She said anything that breaks up the window and makes it a more obvious solid surface — like putting vinyl stickers on the outside, or drawing on it with soap that will wash off in the rain, or even closing curtains or blinds — can help mitigate the problem.

Burns said the zoo has started swapping out some of its plain glass windows for ones with polka-dot designs, and putting bird collision deterrent tape on its other windows — and staff have already noticed a decline in dead birds.

It's an important project that could help counteract rapidly declining bird populations in North America. Still, Burns said when she takes a walk to survey a building, she hopes not to find too many tiny, feathered bodies on the ground below.

"It's one of the only research projects I work on that you're really happy when you don't find anything," she said. "Absence of data is good, in this case."