How To Keep Bluebirds From Flying Into Windows

Bird-Strike Prevention: How to Stop Birds From Striking Windows

Up to i billion birds die after hitting windows in the U.S. each year, and nearly 50% of these hit home windows. Addressing collisions at home makes a huge difference for birds, and there are many bird window deterrents you tin choose to ready your drinking glass.

Interested in a quick glimpse at some popular solutions? A handful of products are below – simply don't forget to check out all of your options!
Ready to get started? Visit our comprehensive bird-friendly products database to find the right solution for you!
Looking for practice-it-yourself abode solutions? Check out our Bird-friendly Windows Flyer.

Bird-Safe Windows: Start by Identifying Bug

If y'all're wondering how to proceed birds from flight into windows, you might presume that applying bird-friendly solutions to all window is necessary, merely that may non be the case: Oft, a small number of windows often a bulk of the collisions. If yous identify and fix just the deadliest windows, you can solve nigh of the problem by addressing a fraction of your glass.

Start by adding a retrofit on these priority windows:

Any window where yous have heard a bird hit or where you have plant a dead bird.
Big windows, especially those that reflect habitat (including sky) or through which yous tin run across sky or greenery on the other side of the edifice.
Windows virtually bird feeders and bird baths.

And so keep paying attention, and have regular walks around the firm. If another bird hits a window, add a retrofit. Soon, you will accept retrofitted a handful of your windows and saved a lot of birds!

Products That Foreclose Collisions

Looking for glass for a new building, or a solution to fix existing windows? Search our comprehensive textile database to find the correct production.

How to Prevent Birds from Hitting Windows

Cheers to research and experience nosotros now know improve how to stop birds from flying into windows. There are several ways to do so: Apply visible patterns to the outside of the glass. (Patterns on the inside are frequently ineffective because they can be hidden by reflections on the outside of the glass.) We focus on the patterns, but birds focus on the spaces. For the birds, patterns must appear to exist solid objects with next spaces that are as well pocket-sized to fly through.

Most birds will avoid glass with vertical or horizontal stripes (or other markings) spaced 2" apart. Stripes should be at least 1/8" wide. A good rule of thumb — you should exist able to run across the design clearly from ten feet away. White stripes tend to perform amend because they reflect most calorie-free and so are visible confronting more types of background reflections. A translucent line won't prove upwardly as well. Patterns of dots tin besides work if the bore of the dots is at least ¼". Of course, since the spacing is what's important, information technology doesn't have to be dots or stripes — y'all can utilize your imagination.

As well, keep in mind that bigger is ameliorate: The wider the lines/dots, the more than constructive they will be because birds volition see them from greater distances. Again, though, the critical issue is the spacing. Until recently, nosotros talked about the '2×4 rule' because inquiry by Klem and Roessler showed that vertical lines spaced 4" apart would terminate a lot of collisions – and that'due south still truthful. Even so, many small songbirds, and especially hummingbirds, tin and will wing through a 4" gap. 2-inch spacing, vertically and horizontally (or at an bending), is plenty to dissuade almost all species. For three dimensional solutions like Acopian Birdsavers, mounted abroad from the glass, 4″ vertical spacing has proved to be effective.

"At Atlanta Audubon, we have retrofitted 7 buildings with Collidescape film and accept been very happy with the results. The retrofit looks sleek and also makes the windows bird-friendly and allows for public didactics."

Adam Betuel

Conservation Manager
Atlanta Audubon Society

Retrofits can price a few pennies per window or can be a long-term investment in your domicile. Patterns and fifty-fifty artwork done on drinking glass with not-toxic tempera paint will concluding a surprisingly long fourth dimension, can be hands removed or replaced, and brand a prissy family or school project, providing a great fashion to decorate windows for holidays and other special occasions. Other kinds of paint can also be effective, but may exist harder to remove. Record and bird window decals work well if you lot follow the spacing rules outlined above. In a pinch, y'all can use gummy notes or even draw on the windows with a bar of soap.

Patterns do non have to be on the glass itself. Three-dimensional solutions in forepart of the glass are highly constructive and tin also exist unobtrusive. Regular insect screens, for example, eliminate reflections and provide a absorber if a bird does hit a window. If y'all don't take built-in screens, or your screens only cover part of a window, there are several options, like Easy Up Shades and Bird Screens, which can exist installed with suctions cups or hooks. Acopian BirdSavers and Bird Crash Preventers too hang in front end of windows and are very constructive at bird-window strike prevention.

Visit the home windows section of our Products & Solutions Database to run across these and other types of bird-saving products, also every bit links to websites where they are available.

Take Action for Birds

ABC is working difficult to make federal buildings bird friendly. Join the states today and enquire Congress to pass the Bird-Safety Buildings Act!

Bird Standoff Prevention for Difficult-to-Reach Windows

Retrofits should go along the outside of the window whenever possible, but some windows are difficult to access from the outside. So, will information technology exist worth the endeavor to put something on the inside of the windows?

Simply a test can provide the reply. Remembering that bigger is better, especially on the within of a window. To get started, put a sample of your proposed solution, or even just a sticky annotation, on the inside of the window. So look at the window from the outside every hour or two, starting in the early morning.

If you tin can clearly see your exam material, the birds will too, and your "inside" solution (retrieve proper spacing) may be somewhat effective. However, in many cases, reflections will mask the view during part or all of the 24-hour interval, and you'll demand a solution on the exterior of your windows. Some window-washing companies are now offering installation of bird-friendly measures as an extra service.

Why Birds Striking Glass

Birds don't sympathise the concept of glass as an invisible barrier that can also exist a mirror. They take what they run across literally: Glass appears to exist habitat they can fly into, whether that habitat is reflected or visible through glass.

Replacement Windows

People often written report birds hitting windows after replacing one-time windows that did not cause many collisions. Several things contribute to this:

Many new windows use multi-layered and energy-efficient coatings, both of which make windows more reflective.
Screens may be sandwiched between panes of glass and/or may cover just half of a window instead of being total screens on the outside.
Individual panes of new drinking glass are oftentimes larger than the panes they replaced and lack the muntins and mullions — the "dividers" that used to hold the smaller pieces of glass, while besides appearing as obstacles to birds.

There are several strategies for new windows and doors (including sliding glass doors):

Order full external screens, even if the windows do not open up.
Choose replacement windows that are not bird friendly and so apply the retrofits discussed above.
Ask for bird-friendly glass.

When ordering replacement windows, information technology is possible to ask for bird-friendly glass that includes patterns in ultraviolet, ceramic ("frit"), etch, or printed patterns. These options are only just starting to be available for home windows and volition likely entail a special order. Await at the new drinking glass options in our Products & Solutions Database for an idea of what might be possible.

Bird-Friendly Buildings Gallery

Visit our photograph gallery to come across how a diversity of materials and techniques tin exist used to make buildings safe for birds and great for people.