Spring is upon us, which means it’s bird migration season. It’s a wonderful time for birders – but a challenging time to be a bird. According to Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance, up to one billion birds die from hitting windows each year in the United States.

To birds, the reflections of landscapes they see on regular glass windows look just like the sky and trees all around them – and they fly right into them. Fortunately, there are bird-friendly glass options such as panes of glass covered in a grid of small, nearly imperceptible gray dots.

“The most effective way to prevent bird strikes is to build with materials that prevent glass collisions. But for existing buildings, there are field-proven inexpensive solutions like acopian bird savers, translucent tape and dot matrix patterns that can be applied to windows,” says Anna Pidgeon, professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology.

Campus’ Bakke Recreation Center is a good example of how our new campus buildings are using bird-friendly glass, yet many of our older buildings still have regular glass. And certain structures – depending on their location, surroundings and window sizes – are more dangerous to birds than others.

So what should you do if you see a dead bird on campus and suspect it died via window strike? You can help out the overall bird population by reporting your sighting. Read below for details.

If you suspect a window strike:

Contact Anna Pidgeon at apidgeon@wisc.edu.  Let her know the name and side of the building where you found the bird, the date, plus the name of the species, if you know it. If you can, put the dead bird in a plastic bag in a freezer and arrange to get it to Anna. 

She is part of a collaborative citizen science program, called the Bird Collision Corps, which works with trained volunteers to monitor select buildings regularly during a six week period in spring and fall, the peak of bird migration, for evidence of collisions. The Bird Collision Corps is already monitoring a number of campus buildings, as well as other buildings in Dane County, and can assess more, as needed.  Monitoring has resulted in mitigation of two big sources of bird deaths on campus: Ogg Residence Hall, where the glass of a pass through walkway was treated with a dot matrix, and Dejope Residence Hall, the north side of which will be treated this upcoming summer. The collaborative team includes Forest and Wildlife Ecology, Facilities Planning and Management, Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance and Dane County Humane Society Wildlife Center.      

If the bird is injured and alive – or likely died by some other (non-window strike) cause:

Contact Richard Ness, wildlife control specialist with Facilities Planning and Management, at richard.s.ness@wisc.edu. He handles campus’ wildlife issues (but not domestic animals).

If the bird is possibly a rare species:

In addition to Anna Pidgeon, please consider contacting the UW Zoological Museum, which acquires, processes, accessions and houses examples of the vertebrate and aquatic fauna of Wisconsin.

What happens to the bird bodies?

Many dead birds end up being picked up by campus’ grounds or custodial services staff.  Some collected as part of the Bird Collision Corps program are kept for use as teaching specimens in forest and wildlife ecology or are added to the research collection of the Zoological Museum.

Resources for retrofitting buildings to minimize bird strikes: 
https://www.fws.gov/story/threats-birds-collisions-buildings-glass
https://abcbirds.org/solutions/prevent-home-collisions/