Window Bird Strikes

You are sitting on the couch one day and WHAM! It sounds like an explosion occurred, but it hasn't. Window bird strikes are very common and you've just experienced one.

As hard as it might be to believe, up to a billion birds die every year from collisions with windows world wide. This includes both residential and commercial buildings. Birds often slam into windows and then lie on the ground stunned. Most people incorrectly assume that the stunned feeling is only temporary and the birds are fine when they gather their wits and fly off. In truth, one out of every two birds will later die do to internal bleeding.


Why do birds fly into windows? Many people assume it is because they can't see the window and merely think they are flying in to an interior space. This actually is not correct. The primary problems is that most birds see reflections of natural habitat in the windows. They might see the reflection of a tree and fly into the window thinking they are heading for a limb they can touch down on. In some cases, territorial birds will actually fly into a window while mistakenly attacking their own reflection.

Commercial structures are also deadly for our flying friends, particularly those that fly at night. There seems to be two central reasons. The first is simply that the structures are so large that they often physically get in the way of the birds, particularly at night. The second reason has to do with lit rooms. The birds flying in the night head for the light only to slam into the windows.



So, is there any way to stop window bird strikes? Yes. The key is to deal with the reflective nature of the window. The best way to do this is to put one way film on the outside of the window. This allows people to see out from the interior of the structure, but birds will simply see an opaque surface on the exterior. Since there is no reflection and little light escape from the interior, most birds are not going to fly into the window.

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