An Invisible Threat
At 6:00 p.m., the New York City air held the telltale promise of fall. I had just returned home after wrapping up a few meetings and errands, but after staring at my to-do list, I realized that I had not done enough work to call it a day. So I donned a jacket — thick enough for a native New Yorker to scoff at in early October — and headed to the library. In front of Washington Square Park, New York University’s Bobst Library looms in all its 12-story and red-sandstone glory. I went straight to the second floor, to the quieter part, where I was guaranteed a spot, and chose a desk next to the floor-to-ceiling glass window that always provides an unobstructed view of the bustling park. I sat down, opened my laptop, and glanced outside, hoping to take in the flurry of activity that is a staple at the park. Instead, my eyes fell on a small, white ball of fluff on the outer sill of the window. It was a bird, a dead one. I took a photo and sent it to my friend, hoping she could identify the species for me. Based on the tail and its palm-sized body, it was probably a finch or a house sparrow, she texted back. The tiny lifeless body reminded me of an old but startling statistic of how building collisions kill up to 1 billion birds a year in the United States. Window and door glass is an invisible threat to birds, especially from late August to November, when millions of birds take to the skies and fly south for the winter, and again when they fly north in the spring. Transparent and reflective glass, lurking in plain sight, lures them in as it appears like something they can pass through. Reflecting on the fact that New York City has one of the highest concentrations of buildings with glass facades in the world, I belatedly realized that the window view that I so prized was contributing to the problem — and had caused this bird’s demise. There are a host of affordable and easy solutions that can help prevent such collision deaths. Reducing night lights in buildings, or even directing lights downward, using patterned and opaque glass panes that birds can actually see, and moving interior plants away from windows are some options. The Bird Collision Prevention Alliance lists several more. As I sat there that night, trying to work, I couldn’t stop thinking about how city buildings could be easily re-envisioned to support our cohabitation with birds, ensuring they can keep to the skies rather than take to the ground.
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