Kelly,

Have you thought of suggesting hanging FINE netting or hardware cloth over the side of the glass walkway? Is there a specific section that has a higher impact rate? Perhaps that area could have the screening in front of it--or maybe even just some poles with streamers (call it art!) so that the birds will fly around that area.

I have given a lot of thought to this issue. I currently have a screen porch that I plan to later convert into a "Four-Season" sitting area. Lots of glass--excellent viewing for my bird watching--but I don't want to create flying hazards for the birds. In researching this problem, I found that UV "window decals" are an improvement over other decals, but still leave much to be desired. Visible physical barriers seem to be the best solution.

Christine Southwick
N Seattle/Shoreline
clsouthwick at pugetsoundbirds.org
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On Tue, 24 Aug 2010, Kelly Cassidy wrote:

> Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:29:58 -0700
> From: Kelly Cassidy <lostriver at completebbs.com>
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu,
> 'Inland NW Birders' <inland-nw-birders at uidaho.edu>
> Subject: [Tweeters] Windows: the "ghost nets" of land
>
>
> Ghost nets are lost, drifting fishing nets that continue to kill animals that get entangled in them.
>
> ?
>
> On the Washington State University campus, there is a glass-enclosed walkway between the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors of Heald and
> Abelson.? I work in the museum in Abelson.? The walkway has long provided a steady source of birds for the museum, one that we
> would rather not have.?? It is an indiscriminate killer.
>
> ?
>
> August 18, I picked up a dead Wilson?s Warbler from below the walkway.? As I was entering it into our record book and bagging
> it for the freezer, I saw that Dick Johnson and Paul Schroeder had added 2 Wilson?s Warblers from below the walkway, both on
> August 5. An hour or so later on August 18, I picked up yet another Wilson?s Warbler from below the walkway.
>
> ?
>
> I don?t normally check under the walkway for birds; I only pick them up when I happen to see them.? With such a high number of
> Wilson?s Warblers in a short period of time, I started doing more deliberate searches and trying to remember to check every
> couple of hours or so.?
>
> ?
>
> This morning about 9:30, I picked up yet another Wilson?s Warbler.? (They must be in a migration peak.)? About 10:30, I was
> talking to someone under the walkway we had said ?A bird just fell to the ground behind you.?? This victim was a Red-breasted
> Nuthatch that was still alive, but stunned.? I put him in a covered bird cage in a dark room.? I was not optimistic, as most
> birds that aren?t killed outright in window kills have traumatic head injuries.? I was pleasantly surprised when I checked on
> him an hour later. ?He was one of the lucky ones.? He was flying around his cage, not having any obvious troubles with
> coordination or flying into the bars. I let him loose outside where he zipped way up in the air and disappeared.?
>
> ?
>
> Not long after that good outcome, I found a not-so-lucky dead sparrow.? I had to carefully compare it with the museum
> specimens to ID it as a juvenile Chipping Sparrow.?
>
> ?
>
> Dr. Daniel Klem has been researching window-kills and how to prevent them since the 1990s.? He has a website with links to
> recent research at:
>
> ?
>
> http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/academics/biology/faculty/klem/ACO/GlassHome.htm
>
> ?
>
> The research is not encouraging, but the most discouraging aspect of window kills is the seeming apathy among
> conservationists.? Klem (and others) believe that, after habitat loss, window strikes are the second largest human-caused
> killers of birds.? In the US, windows passively kill hundreds of millions, maybe as many as a billion birds per year.?
>
> ?
>
> Turns out, the Heald-Abelson skywalk is the worst possible type of window situation, namely, it consists of large panes of
> glass near vegetation.? (The huge glass skyscrapers are not nearly so deadly as windows closer to the ground at vegetation
> level.) ?Worse, birds can see vegetation on the other side of the skywalk from both sides.
>
> ?
>
> I confess to apathy myself, probably for the same reason most other conservationists are apathetic to the situation.? There is
> simply too much glass and too many people adding more glass every year.
>
> ?
>
> Very depressing.
>
> ?
>
> ?
>
> Kelly Cassidy
>
> Pullman, WA
>
> ?
>
>
>
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