Now you can contribute to bird mortality research
When Audubon Society of Omaha moved into its new headquarters at 4339 S. 90th Street in 2020, members were greeted by a symbol antithetical to their mission. A male Nashville Warbler lay dead on the stoop beneath the door after crashing into a window it perceived to be just another part of the natural landscape.“To say the least, it was very disconcerting,” said Bob Wells, past ASO president. “We were kind of sick to our stomachs.”
Unfortunately, bird strikes are a common occurrence, especially in urban areas. In the U.S., between 365 million and 1 billion birds die from window collisions each year. There are measures that can be taken — ASO moved quickly to apply window decals on its office windows to deter birds — but larger-scale change is going to take large-scale action. Kaitlyn Parkins, associate director for conservation and science for New York City Audubon, knows this firsthand. In 2019, New York birders celebrated the passage of legislation requiring all new construction and alterations to use bird-safe glass to curb bird mortality. But Parkins and her fellow advocates had a special tool in their toolbox: dBird.
dBird lets everyday people report dead or injured birds with just a few clicks. Accessible via a mobile phone or desktop browser at dBird.org, the simple user interface asks a few quick questions of its users, such as location, species (if known), and cause of death or injury (if known). The database pulls from existing eBird data on U.S. species.
Parkins and her colleagues were able to cite data from dBird to quantify bird mortality in New York City, building a case for taking action against window collisions. The database continues to inform collision research.
“We are looking at dBird data to learn more about where and when collisions are most likely to happen in different types of environments and combining dBird data with other datasets, such as rehabilitation data, to learn more about which birds are the most susceptible to collisions and why,” Parkins said.
The project has been adopted far and wide. In 2020, New York Audubon partnered with Seattle Audubon to redesign dBird’s interface and make it available to other Audubon chapters and organizations. Seattle birders are in the midst of their own anti-bird-collision advocacy push, spearheaded by the Bird-safe Cities program that supported and funded dBird’s expansion.
At press time, 38 organizations across the country — including ASO — have joined the effort. More than 9,000 observations have been recorded. As stewards of this resource in the Omaha area, we encourage bird lovers of all skill levels to contribute findings. Your input could help inform future campaigns to design bird-safe cities.
“As more organizations sign up to use dBird, I’m sure they will come up with all kinds of exciting new ways to use the data that we haven’t even thought of,” Parkins said.
The University of Nebraska Omaha Audubon Student Conservation Chapter has been active in its campus-wide collision-data collection project.
Report a dead or injured bird
1. Visit dbird.org on a mobile phone or desktop computer.
2. Input your location, bird species, bird condition, and other information when prompted.
3. Tap (mobile) or click (desktop) the blue “Submit” button.
Why are birds prone to window collisions?
Birds and humans perceive the world differently. Most notably, according to the American Bird Conservancy, birds interpret reflections of vegetation, landscapes, or sky to be real. When they pursue these illusions, impacts with glass can result in serious injury or even death. It’s up to us to help prevent this, which doesn’t occur naturally.
“Humans actually don’t see clear glass either — that’s kind of the point,” Parkins said. “But we use visual clues, such as architectural features (mullions in windows, door handles) and other visual cues (dirty spots on the glass, for example) to recognize that glass is present. Decals work because they are providing the visual cues birds need to recognize a solid barrier is present.”
