GR: Here’s a guest post from Sally Perkins.

https://unsplash.com/photos/4EMljshk4kk

Bird-Friendly Windows

It’s our responsibility to take care of all animals on this planet, to protect them from harm and keep them from extinction. With that in mind, we need to pay a little more attention to the windows we’re installing both on high-rise buildings and in our homes. Astonishingly, around 1,000,000,000 birds die every year in the United States as they unwittingly fly into the windows of our man-made structures.

Despite that not all birds die on impact, many of them eventually perish regardless; a devastating result of the internal damage, bleeding and brain trauma caused by the collision. The fear is that a number of species, such as the Wood Thrush, Painted Bunting, Warbler, Kentucky Warbler and the Worm-eating Warbler are at risk of becoming extinct if the problem persists.

The good news, however, is that a number of materials and tricks we can use to alert birds to the oncoming danger of a transparent or reflective surface:

1. Angled Glass

2. Fritted Glass

3. Etched or Sandblasted Glass

4. UV-reflective Glass

5. Decals and wind chimes

6. External shutters, including Venetian blinds

7. Tape Strips

8. All-season bug screens

9. External shades and awnings

10. The whitewashing of unused windows