Reducing Bird Collisions: Practical Solutions for Building Glass and Light
Find out how important it is to reduce outdoor lighting, particularly during bird migration, and make buildings safer for birds.
Photo: Purple Martins, Keith Kingdon/Audubon Photography Awards
Original program date: April 15, 2026
ZOOM PASSCODE: nKyn03#q
Find out how important it is to reduce outdoor lighting, particularly during bird migration, and make buildings safer for birds.
Over 100 million birds will migrate through northern Virginia in this spring, and eighty percent of our migrating birds travel at night. They use a variety of cues to keep themselves on track, including the stars. For that reason, excessive lights at night can be deadly for them. Some birds crash into buildings at night, injuring or killing themselves, and others can be distracted from their migration routes, flying around lights and wasting the energy they need to reach their destinations. During daylight, birds mistake reflective glass surfaces for open space, fly into them and die. Over 1 billion birds die from building collisions in the United States each year.
Hear from our speakers Joelle Gehring, the Acting Assistant Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Program, and Jo Anna Lutmerding, a Biologist, also with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Join them to learn how outdoor lights affect bird migration and birds’ health and reproduction throughout the year and how you can make buildings and houses safer for birds.
Note that this is a recorded Zoom meeting and you will need the passcode to view: nKyn03#q
Learn How to Protect Northern Virginia's Birds
Watch this recorded program to learn more about the dangers our birds face from window collisions and other man-made hazards and what you can do to make their lives less risky.
Photo: Purple Martins, Keith Kingdon/Audubon Photography Awards
Original program date: October 9, 2024
Over 100 million birds migrate through northern Virginia each spring, and 160 million migrate through each fall. Their journeys are perilous because they can be attracted to and disoriented by brightly lit buildings and crash into them or waste precious energy flying around the lights.
Birds that live here risk colliding with glass and other reflective surfaces, and light pollution disrupts their feeding, sleeping and reproduction, as well as that of the plants and insects on which they depend.
NVBA has established a partnership with Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy, DarkSky Virginia, DarkSky NOVA, Nature Forward, the Friends of Dyke Marsh and the Friends of Little Hunting Creek to initiate a Bird Safe NOVA campaign. Watch this recorded program to learn more about the dangers our birds face and what you can do to make their lives less risky. Our speakers include Greg Butcher, the recently retired Migratory Species Coordinator for U.S. Forest Service’s International Programs; Christine Sheppard, the American Bird Conservancy’s Bird Collisions Campaign Director; and Laura Greenleaf, the volunteer leader of DarkSky Virginia.
Window Collisions
Collisions with windows are the third greatest cause of death for birds in the United States, after habitat loss and predation by outdoor cats.
Photo: Bird-friendly windows, National Audubon Society
Original program date: March 19, 2020
Collisions with windows are the third greatest cause of death for birds in the United States, after habitat loss and predation by outdoor cats. Peer-reviewed conservative research estimates that about one million birds collide with windows every day—the annual estimate is 365 to 988 million.
To learn about this threat and how to help mitigate it at your home, Reston Association and the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia invited Peter Saenger, President of Lehigh Valley Audubon Society, and Leigh Altadonna, President of the Wyncote Audubon Society, to speak on March 19, 2020 via webinar. They lead a Pennsylvania-based Bird-Window Collision Working Group that includes the Acopian Center at Muhlenberg College, Audubon Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley and Wyncote Audubon Societies. Their group has developed a “Bird-Window Collision Toolkit” which is being used by other Audubon groups.
Note that after introductions, the webinar describes how this toolkit can be used to educate others; basic information on how and why birds collide with windows then follows.
Also, this page from Pennsylvania Audubon features "how to" videos on installing solutions to prevent collisions. If you do install materials, the Bird-Window Collision Working Group would welcome your completing a survey on what you did--the survey link is also on the Pennsylvania Audubon page under “Record how you are protecting birds at your own home or place of work.”