Welcome back, my amicable avian allies, to the penultimate update of our tragic bird situation on campus! For those out of the loop, last March, several staff members and some high school students (including yours truly) met to discuss a pressing issue: the death of songbirds on our campus. In order to get everyone on the same page, however, the cause of the bird strikes on campus windows had to be made clear (pun intended). Simply put, windows, much like a toxic friend, offer myriad possibilities before causing one to crash into an invisible surface at top speeds, instantly killing (or causing internal bleeding) anyone who comes into contact with it. Well, maybe not exactly like a toxic friend. One of the wonderful properties of windows is that they reflect whatever is close by—in our case, plants. Since birds cannot see glass, they view windows on our campus as efficient ways to get from point A to point B. The bigger the window, the better! Tragically, the only point B these birds will be getting to by taking this shortcut is Heaven, as the impact is enough to “swift”ly (sorry) end birds, or cause enough internal damage to kill them shortly after the initial collision. Migration season only amplifies these problems. Birds get more territorial, causing them to mistake their own reflections in the glass as opponents encroaching on their territory. The black bird decals didn’t help in this matter either, offering the territorial avians an even juicier (and deadlier) target for their misplaced aggression. Aside from reflections, having lighted areas at night also provoked birds to fly to their demise. Especially in the winter, when the dark settles in faster than all the school lights are turned off, birds find the light coming from the windows very appealing to go towards. With all these factors against us, it seems nigh impossible to find a solution that will benefit both the school and the birds. However, through the efforts of our meeting, we were able to emerge with a solution: UV liquid.

Much like Superman with kryptonite, if there is anything that can deter birds, it’s ultraviolet light. While invisible to humans, UV light shines brilliantly to birds. Where there were once plants reflected in a surface, there was now an entirely uninviting, blinding light that any sensible bird would steer clear of. Over the summer, UV dots were applied generously to the outside of the east-west facing window in the Worthington building, where the vast majority of bird strikes were reported. Ever since, there haven’t been any more bird corpses littering the rocks outside the windows, clearly demonstrating its effectiveness.  While this solution sounds perfect, however, it is not without its faults. With constant exposure to the sun and the elements, the UV dots weather away fairly quickly, and will thus have to be reapplied fairly regularly. While this doesn’t sound too difficult, applying the dots to the outside of windows is decidedly harder than applying them on the inside, where they would be ineffective due to the UV side facing the wrong way. Due to this, the administration has also begun discussing more permanent, construction-based solutions to the issue. While details are still vague, Ms Harms shared that an important aspect to consider during construction would be how to maintain natural light while minimizing potential bird impact surfaces. But, until then, the UV dots will be reapplied this coming spring in anticipation of the mating season, where birds also become very territorial. All in all, the ribbon has been wrapped around this issue until permanent solutions can be applied. However, not all is well in the birding world.

Just last Thursday, the New York Times reported that nearly 1,000 migrating birds were killed in one night after crashing into the McCormick Place Lakeside Center. The leading theory for why this happened is that after an event, the lights in the building had been left on well into the night, consequently luring many of the birds to their demise. While sad, this event is all too commonplace in industrial buildings and private residences alike. As such, it is no surprise that more than one billion birds are slaughtered in the United States each year from window strikes alone. In order to prevent even more bird deaths, our community must rally together and find solutions together. This can be done by simply turning off lights at night or when not in use, covering large areas of windows with drapes, decals, or blinds, and informing one’s community to do the same. Once we do this, only then can we stand a chance of making a dent in the unjust slaughter of our flying friends.