If a bird has collided with your home, you are not alone as up to 1 billion birds die each year following window collisions in the United States. The good news is that you can install one of the effective solutions below to prevent future collisions. These products are easy to install, but if you … Read More>>

Join the Many Communities Helping to Prevent Bird Collisions When writing bird-friendly building legislation, ABC recommends starting with our Model Ordinance and Guide to Writing Legislation. In addition to focusing on the resources that we have created to help you, it can be useful to survey existing legislation and guidelines. We are listing these below. … Read More>>

Become a Collisions Advocate in Your Community Legislation is an essential tool for speeding up the creation of a bird-friendly built environment. People working to reduce collision threats to birds soon realize how difficult it can be to convince a building owner to undertake a retrofit of an existing building. While strides can be taken … Read More>>

New York City Local Law 15 of 2020 stipulates that most glass on new structures must have a Threat Factor of 25 or less to meet bird-friendly design requirements starting January 1, 2021. Below, you will find American Bird Conservancy's table of Material Threat Factors that can be used to identify acceptable materials. Materials are … Read More>>

Tips for Addressing Buildings That Harm Birds in Your Community Adding retrofits to address collisions at your home or another building where you have authority is fairly straightforward: Figure out the problem windows, choose the best solution for you, install it, and save birds. The process, however, is not nearly as simple if you would … Read More>>

The U.S. Green Building Council's Bird-friendly Design Credit: Bird Collision Deterrence The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) was established as a nonprofit organization in 1993 to promote sustainable design. At that time, the newly founded group created the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED program, partnering with a wide coalition of environmental groups, … Read More>>

Windows: The Invisible Killer Each year up to 1 billion birds die after hitting glass surfaces in the United States. Why do birds hit windows? Birds collisions occur for two primary reasons: Can Birds See Glass? There are many questions about birds' relationship with glass and windows. Several of the most common are: Can birds … Read More>>

The Specifics of Bird-Friendly Building Ordinances Bird-friendly legislation in the U.S. started in 2008 with then-local Congressman Mike Quigley's bill for unincorporated Cook County, Illinois (excluding Chicago). Since then, dozens of jurisdictions, from states to towns, have passed legislation. Bird-friendly design ordinances generally include the same sections, including which structures are covered, how much of … Read More>>

Factors Influencing Risk of Glass Collisions for Birds Multiple interacting factors influence the collision threat that a given building poses to birds (Hager, 2008; Hager et al., 2013). Klem et al. (2009), looked at architectural and landscape variables for 73 buildings in New York City and concluded that the amount of glass on a façade … Read More>>

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has created model, or ideal, legislative language, downloadable below, as a starting point for cities, villages, counties, states, universities, businesses — any entity interested in regulating new construction to reduce bird mortality from collisions with glass. They describe truly bird-friendly buildings. Summarized simply, the guidelines are based on a 100/100/100 framework: … Read More>>