Summary
Preliminary data suggests a rise in bird collisions with NYC buildings during fall migration, with volunteers reporting an increased number of injured birds brought to the Wild Bird Fund.
The NYC Bird Alliance noted a “particularly bad” season, with a potential 20% uptick from last year. Factors include an influx of young, inexperienced birds and a slight increase in migration volume, tracked by BirdCast.
Advocates call for more mandatory bird-safe measures, as voluntary actions to reduce light and install bird-safe glass are insufficient to prevent such collisions.
For just a bit more context. NYC currently requires that all new buildings must incorporate bird-safe glass, but has not made any moves to address what should happen with all of the existing buildings.
Birds see reflections of the sky or plants, or maybe they see someone’s plants inside through the glass, and they think the window is somewhere they can fly through or land on and end up smacking into it at full speed. The bird safe glass adds patterns to windows which are visible to birds and lets them know it’s not something they can fly through, though it isn’t a perfect solution.
Tragically, even when they may be stunned at first and fly away shortly after, most birds that hit windows will still later die of their injuries.