When birds began to fall from the sky last Saturday, a small crowd gathered and watched helplessly as they collided with the suspended glass walkway at Ottawa city hall.
At least 34 birds died from hitting the walkway. Another seven were injured.
Eventually, one of the onlookers decided to contact Safe Wings Ottawa – local volunteer group whose aim is to protect migratory birds from building collisions – and alert them of the incidents.
“We first heard about it through a tweet,” says Cynthia Paquin, a volunteer with SWO. “It was asking if we had moved our display outside.”
The Tuesday before the crashes, SWO displayed the bodies of 900 birds on the floor inside city hall to raise awareness about bird window collisions. The bodies were all found by SWO in 2015 – a portion of the 1,297 crashes they recorded that year.
FLAP, a national group also working to protect birds from crashes, organizes a similar protest annually in Toronto.
An estimated one billion birds die every year in North America because they hit man made reflective buildings. That’s more than 2.5 million birds every day. Paquin says these number are so abstract and large that people have a hard time connecting with it.
“The display helps,” she says. “When people see the different species, all the different colours of the birds laid out it becomes more tangible.”
Despite efforts to raise awareness, stories about bird collisions continue to appear online and in newspapers. Saturday was not the first time bird deaths at city hall have occurred.
“Exactly the same thing happened in 2015,” says Anouk Hoedeman, founder of SWO. “Same time of year, same place and same breed.”
Following an incident three years ago, decals were placed on the glass walkway to prevent future crashes. Despite those measures being put in place, birds continue to collide with the walkway. Due to the events last Saturday, the windows are now covered in cardboard.
“We now know those measures aren’t effective,” says Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney. “Measures have been developed that are effective and we need to put those in place.”
According to Hoedeman, one of the best ways to avoid collisions is patterned glass, which doesn’t reflect the exterior. Reflections of trees are the main problem, as birds think the surface is just another area to fly through.
“People want easy solutions,” says Hoedeman, “but effective solutions will cost money.”
Paquin says she believes having a flagship, or a building to act as an example for others on how to implement safety measures, would be effective ways to promote change. She says city hall may be a great place to start, as SWO is hoping to work with them to set construction standards for buildings in Ottawa.
McKenney agrees and says that it’s important to have a municipal body lead the way.
“We need to do some education with existing owners of buildings where there’s a lot of glass reflecting trees and nature,” says McKenney. “We also have to take stronger measures for ourselves and we will be looking at that as a council.”
SWO is also looking at buildings currently undergoing renovations such as the National Arts Centre. The new design for the arts centre include many windows.
“The NAC is trying to make the building bird friendly,” says Hoedeman. “They want to use glass with a ceramic frit fused to it.”
A frit is a ceramic pattern that when placed on glass breaks up the reflection. Hoedeman says frits are best placed on the outside of windows, but sometimes those in charge of the building will opt to place them inside, worried the frits will detract from the look of the exterior.
“This is why we need an example,” says Paquin. “There has to be a building for people to look to and see it’s not visually unappealing and the aesthetic can blend in with the architecture of the building.”
There are other effective measures at the building stage, such as tilting windows down slightly so they do not reflect the nature outside. SWO also encourages private homeowners to take preventative DIY measures, but their focus is on large corporate buildings in urban areas.
“There are people working on cats killing birds and there are people working on wind turbines,” says Paquin. “We all have to make strong movement in order for the birds to stand a chance. If we don’t act now, it my be over for them.”