Anthropocene Reflections

HOW MANY birds die from window collisions and WHY?

I paused to gaze out the window and noticed a Blue Jay looking back at me. It was perched on one of the lower branches of our old dogwood tree. As I watched, the jay flew up to a higher branch. Suddenly, it fell from the branch, back down, belly up, like it had just dropped dead. I gasped as it flipped over at the last millisecond and landed on the lower branch, back on its feet. The maneuver was quite a stunt. What amused me even more was the timing of the stunt, because I was writing an outline for a podcast interview about windows and dead birds. How could I help but interpret the performance as a message from Nature expressing approval for my choice of topic: Bird Building Collision Monitoring: Migratory Bird Conservation.

Go outside during daylight and take a good look at the windows around your home, apartment complex, or office building. What do you notice? Does the glass create optical illusions of reflectivity or transparency?

Now imagine you are a bird. Might the reflection of trees and/or sky in the window look like an extension of the outdoor landscape? Or does it appear as if you could fly right through it?

Have you ever seen or heard someone walk smack into a glass door, thinking it was open to a deck or patio? You get the idea.

My daughter gave me a timely book for Christmas - Vesper Flights by Helen McDonald. In a chapter titled High-Rise, McDonald describes birdwatching from the observation deck of the Empire State Building, peering into the night sky with a set of binoculars during migration season. She explains: “most species of diurnal birds migrate after nightfall. It’s safer. Temperatures are cooler, and there are fewer predators around.”

Focusing her binoculars on infinity, McDonald looks straight up and watches birds invisible to the naked eye fly into view. She sees an awful lot of them. As the birds pass over, they are illuminated, briefly, by, and I quote her, “this column of light cast by a building thrown up through the Depression years to celebrate earthly power and capital confidence.” A colleague standing next to McDonald consults a radar app that indicates over one thousand birds per cubic mile.

These birds are stellar navigators. They rely on the position and rotation of the stars to find their way. City lights can disorient them, draw them down and around the buildings. McDonald watches a warbler fly down and circle one of the high-rise buildings - around and around - and later she writes: “We cherish our cities for their appearance at night, but it takes a terrible toll on migrating songbirds: you can find them dead or exhausted at the foot of high-rise buildings all over America. Disoriented by light and reflections on glass, they crash into obstacles, fly into windows, spiral down to the ground. More than a hundred thousand die each year in New York.”

I wondered: How do star-guided birds navigate if the night sky is cloudy? Answer: They have a special sense called magnetoreception, which allows them to perceive Earth’s magnetic fields.

I also wondered: How do electromagnetic fields (EMF), emitted by 5G/6G technology and related infrastructure, affect bird migration? How about spinning wind turbines? So many questions. More research needed.

For my February Story Walking podcast, I interviewed Elaine Carlson, a Chicago resident who volunteers with Chicago Bird Collision Monitoring. For the past nine years - every spring and fall – Carlson has spent early morning hours recovering migratory birds that collide with Chicago’s downtown buildings. She has also responded to hundreds of hotline calls from concerned citizens: running out of the door, net in hand, to scoop up stunned and injured birds from balconies, parking lots, and city streets.

Carlson has rescued well over 1,000 injured birds and documented over 1,500 fatalities. Some of her stories are dumbfounding. She describes the causes and offers up actionable solutions.

Listen to the podcast, Bird Building Collision Monitoring: Migratory Bird Conservation, explore the resource links to see videos and data, and learn more about ongoing research and preventive action.

Help monitor live birds this week, February 13-16, 2026. Find out how at Great Backyard Bird Count.

Go on a bird walk, and record observations in a nature journal.

Wendy hosts the Story Walking Radio Hour every Monday at 9am and 9pm ET on the Dreamvisions 7 Radio Network. Access more episodes at storywalking.com.