On a hot July day, summer camp students chatter around tables in a shaded outdoor classroom at Jones Valley Teaching Farm in downtown Birmingham. The sprawling campus sits as a green oasis amid an urban jungle. Blinding sunshine streamed down across a sprawling field of crops while bees buzzed in the pollinator gardens nearby.
But it’s not always plants and tranquility.
Instructor Domenique Price said back in the spring during some field trips, the kids received an unsettling surprise.
“Sometimes we had incidents where we had birds colliding into the windows,” Price said. “And obviously, that's not a good experience for students.”
Birds fly across Alabama as they migrate during the spring and the fall. But every year, more than one billion birds die from window collisions in the U.S. In fact, it’s the second leading cause of death for birds worldwide. So Alabama Audubon launched an initiative called Project Safe Flight to make windows more bird-friendly.
Lianne Koczur, the Science and Conservation Director with Alabama Audubon, said birds can’t see glass.
“Birds didn't evolve with windows,” Koczur said.
Window collisions become more common as birds move through unfamiliar habitats. Though birds have migrated for thousands of years, they’ve only had to deal with buildings relatively recently, making for hazardous travel.
Koczur said a bird’s field of vision is only two to four inches. Windows also create an optical illusion as they reflect back the surrounding environment of the sky and trees.
“They can't tell it's a reflection,” Koczur said. “So they're just flying to it thinking it's somewhere safe to fly.”
Identifying the problem
Back in 2018, community volunteers began to collect bird fatality data from buildings in Birmingham. Eventually, Alabama Audubon expanded their research to Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Auburn, and Mobile. Alabama is part of the Mississippi Flyway, one of the major migratory routes for birds as they fly between nesting grounds to the north and winter homes in Central and South America. Researchers documented more than 1,000 bird deaths from window collisions since 2023 during spring and fall migrations across the state.
“Unfortunately, a lot of these migratory birds are already kind of living life on a razor's edge,” Adam Betuel, Executive Director of Birds Georgia, said. “They're doing these unbelievable journeys for a 4-inch bird that weighs, you know, nothing is going from Canada to Brazil and stopping over for a few days in North Georgia or Central Alabama. They don't have room to make many mistakes.”
Finding solutions
To address the problem, Alabama Audubon works with businesses and organizations to make their windows more bird-friendly. Windows can be retrofitted with ultraviolet glass, a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that birds can see. But less expensive solutions are also an option.
That’s what happened recently at Jones Valley Teaching Farm, where volunteers from Alabama Audubon sliced through sheets of plastic before meticulously attaching decals to the classroom windows.
“We are putting Bird Divert window decals on the windows,” Koczur said. “These are UV decals, so they reflect UV light which birds can see.”
The dots are smaller than a dime, evenly spaced out in neat rows. Each dot is placed about 2 inches apart horizontally and 4 inches apart vertically. Koczur said they serve as stop signs for birds during migratory traffic.
Project Safe Flight has been gaining traction in Birmingham. The University of Alabama at Birmingham also had issues with birds flying into windows while students were in class – particularly at Heritage Hall, situated right next to the campus green.
“It's certainly disruptive and has a psychological effect,” Bambi Ingram, UAB’s Sustainability Officer, said.
In response, the university retrofitted and added decals to some windows on campus – with more bird-safe upgrades on the horizon.
“Some of our architects have come to us saying it would be very easy for us to just use the glass that already has this collision prevention material embedded in it,” Ingram said. “We're also working on making it part of our standards in the future.”
Initiatives like Project Safe Flight have been ongoing in parts of the Northeast and West Coast, where some local governments now mandate new construction must have bird-safe windows. Betuel hopes to advocate for similar ordinances in the Southeast.
“Moving forward, the big next hurdle is how do we get ordinances or find ways to make sure that new buildings are constructed in a way that this won't be a problem in 20, 50, or 100 years,” Betuel said.
Backyard safeguards
Project Safe Flight doesn’t stop at urban landscapes; half of bird fatalities from window collisions occur at residential homes.
“It's not just the biggest buildings in Birmingham or the biggest buildings in Atlanta. They are a problem,” Betuel said. “But just a few birds at all of our homes and townhouses and apartments, that adds up to a really sizable and scary number.”
So Alabama Audubon recommends putting bird feeders at least three feet away from windows to limit potential collisions. At night, turn off lights to prevent distorting a bird’s vision.
“I always try to tell people, too, that want to attract more birds to their yard, like through bird feeders or native plants or anything that another big part of that is trying to make your windows safe for them, too,” Koczur said.
Jones Valley Teaching Farm Instructor Domenique Price said their window decals aren’t just for the birds.
“[It’s] also being able to educate students about why those dots are there and how we can positively influence and impact our environment by this simple thing,” Price said.
A simple thing that can make a big difference for the birds flying across Birmingham this fall.
