By Chuck Blair, Senior Wildlife Ecologist
As people celebrate International Migratory Bird Day around the world, it’s a good time to take a look at a few simple things we can all do to help birds thrive. Collisions with glass are believed to be one of the foremost anthropogenic (human-caused) causes of death for birds in North America and Europe. It is estimated that between 100 million and 1 billion birds are killed annually in North America by collisions with buildings – primarily by collisions with windows (Diehl et al. 2010 and American Bird Conservancy 2012).
Collisions occur both during the day and at night. During the day, birds see reflections of nearby vegetation or the sky on the glass and unwittingly attempt to fly into this false landscape (Diehl et al. 2010).
At night, birds are drawn to the artificial sky glow produced by excessive, overnight lighting. In Chicago and New York City, flocks of night-migrating songbirds numbering in the hundreds have been filmed circling in confusion around lighted tall buildings and repeatedly colliding with lighted windows and building signage.
What Can We Do?
In office buildings, researchers have found that turning off lights, closing blinds, and reducing the number of lighted windows can lower bird mortality by more than 80 percent. If you are working at night, draw the blinds and, when finished, turn off the lights. This is especially important between about 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. during the peak migration periods of mid-April through June 15 and September 1 through October 30.
Reducing day-time collisions requires disrupting the bird’s perception that they can fly through widows. At my own home (I’m a senior wildlife ecologist in Boise, Idaho), I feed literally hundreds of birds in my yard, and some were hitting windows. I taped lengths of ¼-inch wide gift wrapping ribbon at about 5-inch spacing to the offending windows, allowing the strands to move freely in the wind. This has reduced bird strikes from about 10 to only 1 or 2 over the entire winter. Of those that do hit a window, some recover, perhaps because the deterrent allows them to change course before fully striking the window.
What Can We Do if We Design Buildings?
If you are designing or building a house or commercial building, or if you are involved in urban planning, take steps to make buildings bird-safe. Resources are available at: http://www.flap.org/commercial.php and at the American Bird Conservancy’s Bird-friendly Building Design site.
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It’s always been fascinating to see that when we, as engineers, think we’ve solved one problem, a new one emerges. The discovery that chlorine disinfected water resulted in a significant decrease in water borne illnesses probably represents one of the more impactful accomplishments in public sanitation ever. But, we soon discovered that the use of chlorine also meant disinfection by-products formed through the reaction between chlorine and naturally occurring organic matter in the raw water. Thus, the EPA began regulating total trihalomethanes starting in 1979. In response, utilities made changes to treatment to reduce the concentration of TTHMs. To achieve rule compliance, some utilities responded by installing additional treatment systems to reduce the concentration of disinfection byproduct precursors. These treatment systems resulted in higher capital and operating costs, more treatment residuals requiring disposal, more chemicals being used, and more energy use. Others altered their disinfection process or opted for a low cost alternative by switching to chloramines, which simply requires addition of an ammonia feed system.
As we celebrate Drinking Water Week, I find myself reflecting on my own career in the industry and how I got to where I am today. Interestingly, professional societies have played a major role from the very beginning.
Our world, technology, and industry are moving at breakneck speed; we need the best and brightest people in our industry. The key to understanding and utilizing professional societies is to realize it is of dual benefit—to you as a person and as a professional. For it to be of maximum value, you need to commit some of your own personal time and effort. It’s like the old adage “you get out what you put in.” For me, the value I have gotten out of it far exceeds the effort I have put in. The relationships I have made will follow me the rest of my career.
