Two websites that detail methods to prevent window strikes at home:
https://abcbirds.org/solutions/prevent-home-collisions/
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The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
41–50 of 131 posts
Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both Chicago and Illinois have bird friendly building ordinances but the building in question was built in 1960 long before they existed. It’s also massive so mitigations will take a long time to be applied.
> It’s also massive so mitigations will take a long time to be applied. Surely it cannot be too hard to slap 2 or 3 anti-collision decals on every window from the outside?
You need more than 2 or 3 decals per window — there should be 2" or less of vertical space and 4" or less of horizontal space between markings (the 2" x 4" rule).
Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's proportionally like the equivalent death toll of NYC on 9/11 or slightly higher. In NYC, 1 in 4000 people died on 9/11. In Chicago, 1 in 2000 birds died the other day. (Not to say it's equivalent at all, just that it's certainly a newsworthy event to the birds).
Not to be a prick, but this is HumanNews.
It's actually Hacker News. There's nothing inherently human about being a hacker.
Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#44I highly encourage anyone who had birds crash on their windows to install white dot stickers. I installed some last spring on my windows and not a single bird crashed on them since. At first they look a bit odd, but after a week they were almost invisible, turns out the brain is really good at hiding things we don't care to see. They are a bit of a pain to install but it is well worth the effort.
Also for deer. Deer are idiots, the males even more so during the rut. They will see similarly-sized deer in any vertical glass surface (their own reflection) and charge the window antlers-first. They break through the glass and now you have a deer running around inside your house or school. A few stickers won't stop them from seeing their reflection, but it will put an "object" between them and thereby stop the charge. I've even seen this in car windows. Tall deer (elk) are so dumb that they will repeatedly charge the tiny elk reflected in a car window. They aren't attacking the car but the other elk they think is inside. I'm surprised they all don't drown every time they see rival elk inside a calm lake.
Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#45Regulation is the answer here since the mitigation methods are known
Not just birds, but with everything else in life, I tend to first check if regulations exist before advocating for (more) regulation.
Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#46I highly encourage anyone who had birds crash on their windows to install white dot stickers. I installed some last spring on my windows and not a single bird crashed on them since. At first they look a bit odd, but after a week they were almost invisible, turns out the brain is really good at hiding things we don't care to see. They are a bit of a pain to install but it is well worth the effort.
This also works for humans, who have a tendency to walk through glass sliding doors if no pattern is applied. https://www.purlfrost.com/blog/stop-people-walking-glass-pat...
Ha ha, and when Apple had to add these to the new "mothership" campus in Cupertino they were referred to as "Jony's Tears".
Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#47In one migration day, not every day, as I initially thought what the title suggested.
Yeah, you start to run the numbers (multiply by 365 days in a year, times the number of buildings in Chicago, times the number of cities...) and you see a mass extinction before next Spring.
Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#48Regulation is the answer here since the mitigation methods are known
Not just birds, but with everything else in life, I tend to first check if regulations exist before advocating for (more) regulation.
It’s not a binary question. Effective regulation (including timely updates such as mandating seat belts or airbags once they become possible) very much is a living ongoing project.
Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#49Re: The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
#50Mildly related anecdote: At one job, we had an expensive office built out as our company grew. The CEO and CTO came in from out of town to do the ribbon cutting so to speak and welcome us to our new office. I was there as a manager doing setup before we moved the main workforce into the new office, and the CTO came through the kitchen to talk to me, and smashed his face right into a glass wall. Broke his nose and had…
When Apple Park first started migrating teams a number of people walked into the glass doors in the hallways. They pretty quickly put up little markers on the glass. It was still a stupid design not built for humans.