AU in the News
Article Archives"Class reflects on pesky question of, 'Why do birds...thud!'"
by Burt Constable, Daily Herald Correspondent
Daily Herald
Arlington Heights, Illinois, USA
Originally published: Saturday, September 18, 2004
Printed with permission of The Daily Herald
On days when she volunteers with the Chicago Bird Collision Monitor and Rescue Project, Judie Hermsen leaves her Barrington home at 4 a.m. to search the streets around Chicago skyscrapers for injured birds that hit windows.She has competition.
"Seagulls look at these birds as wonderful snacks," Hermsen notes. Some mornings, she and a partner find as many as 40 dead or injured birds - including owls, cuckoos, woodpeckers, woodcocks and warblers.
"It's amazing the birds that can be found in the city," Hermsen says.
While not as concentrated, suburban windows may be just as deadly, says Robbie Lynn Hunsinger, founder of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors.
"There's a lot of commercial properties (in Naperville, Libertyville and Schaumburg) I'm starting to get calls on," Hunsinger says.
The suburban risks to birds are growing with "some of these huge homes that are going up with these huge windows that are lit at night," Hermsen adds.
"It's a problem everywhere," Hunsinger concludes.
Research on the problem began Friday at Aurora University, as 13 students in a "research and biology" class started tallying the number of dead birds around campus and nearby homes.
"I wanted to give my first-year students a glimpse at what it means to be a scientist," says David Horn, an assistant professor of biology at the school. Horn's students also will try to determine factors that caused the birds to hit the windows, and how to prevent that.
Studies estimate between 100 million and a billion birds die in North America each year because they hit windows.
"The statistics, which are pretty startling, are accurate," notes John DuBois of Bensenville, a board member of the Prairie Woods Audubon Society, which maintains a 7-acre prairie in Palatine.
Horn says most homeowners "are probably unaware of the extent of the problem," because many of the crashes occur when people are at work or gone from their homes. Scavengers such as skunks eat the carcasses, he adds.
Horn's previous classes have researched many aspects of suburban bird life, such as how temperature affects activity at bird feeders, or how to attract more migrating birds.
"My interest probably started in eighth grade when I did a science project on what bird seed birds like best," says Horn. The 32-year-old Maryland native recalls that "black oil sunflower seed" was the winner.
By January, Horn hopes to expand his research and prevention tests throughout the Western suburbs.
"Students will be going around neighbors' windows and counting dead birds," he says. "Are there solutions that homeowners can do that will lower the frequency of window/bird collisions?"
(Grammarians and editors note these impacts aren't true "collisions" unless both parties are moving, but the result to the bird is the same.)
The Aurora study is sponsored by the Wild Bird Center of America, which has stores in Fox River Grove, Libertyville and Wheaton. Homeowners can volunteer to be part of the study by sending Horn an e-mail at djhorn@aurora.edu.
In the meantime, homeowners can take several simple steps to protect birds. The Chicago Bird Collision Monitor and Rescue Project has saved thousands of birds simply by persuading building owners to shut off lights at night during the migrating season. (Injured birds are rehabbed with the help of groups such as The Fox Valley Wildlife Center in the Elburn Woods Forest Preserve.)
Local homeowners can make an impact on reducing bird impacts as well. Placing a bird feeder within 3 feet of a window helps, as birds leaving the feeder don't have time to build fatal velocity if they fly into the window, Horn says. Experts suggest keeping inviting plants and trees away from windows, inside and out. Shades, blinds, decals or anything to lessen the reflective properties of windows also helps.
Birds sometimes attack their own reflections, mistaking them for enemy birds invading their turf, Horn says. Angling a window so that it reflects the ground, or using special windows with built-in barriers that birds can see also helps.
The professor practices what he's learned. From his third-story apartment in Aurora, Horn looks out the window onto his thistle-seed feeder and notes, "I am pleased to say, I've never had a fatality at my apartment."