No doubt about it, there’s a building boom in Northwest Arkansas. More homes and buildings mean more panes of glass are going up.
Bird-window collissions are also on the rise.
Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society is on a mission to ask citizens to install collision deterrents on their windows. Installing decals on glass is one easy way. A little computer research reveals all kinds of artsy stickers that birds will see and hopefully not fly into the glass. It’s a crash that’s often fatal to our feathered friends.
Another idea is to install lengths of parachute cord to hang vertically from the top of a window to near the bottom of a window or lower. The group has step by step instructions on its website, nwarkaudubon.org, for creating this stringed collision prevention. Cords don’t take long to install and it’s an inexpensive prevention, as Joe Neal of Fayetteville writes on nwarkaudubon.org.
“For the past 30 years, I have been looking at birds through a large picture window at my home in Fayetteville. For about half that time birds paid the price of my hobby,” Neal writes.
Occasionally a hawk would try to grab an easy meal of a bird on the feeder. Sometimes the escaping bird would fly into Neal’s window.
“What has slowed this way, way down has been installation of some long green strings of parachute cord. I cut the cords I needed to appropriate lengths, then stapled them on a 1-by-2-inch board four inches apart. I fixed this board with strings across the top of my picture window. I’d say the whole business cost maybe $5. Most importantly, it slowed down window strikes.”
The cord is placed on the outside of the window.
Later, Neal found out the cord is more effective if the strings are placed two inches apart instead of four. It didn’t take long for him to modify his set up. Neal stapled his strings to a board, but the vertical strings can also be attached to a horizontal string of cord placed across the top of the window. It’s effective on windows and patio doors of homes or giant panes on tall buildings.
“I call this a type of work ‘Ozark engineering.’ It’s not beautiful, but it has helped,” Neal writes. “I used inexpensive materials and wasn’t too fussy in terms of how I put them up. This may work for some of you. It will help reduce bird strikes on your windows.”
Birds fly into windows because they see reflection of the sky or vegetation in the window. They think it’s the real thing, not a reflection, and fly into it, according to the National Audubon Society. During mating season, birds may see their reflection in the window. They think it’s another bird and attack the image. Collisions with glass kill millions of birds each year, Audubon says.
Windows that are especially worthy of attention are windows that have already caused collissions, large windows and glass doors and windows near feeders, bird baths and fruit-bearing plants, says the NWA Audubon website.
People should be able to see the pattern from a distance of 10 feet. Birds need this distance to detect decals or cord so they have time to change course away from the window. The larger the window decal the more effective it will be.
Get even more advice on saving the lives of birds at the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society website. Click on “Preventing window collissions at home” for more ideas.
