Bird Window Strike Monitoring at SUNY Plattsburgh

Abstract

Bird window collisions are a major anthropogenically-derived threat, resulting in 100-1000 million bird deaths annually in the U.S., making it the second largest mortality factor for birds. The relationship between bird window collisions (BWC) and building factors, such as size, window area, proximity to nearest road (as well as traffic intensity on that road), and vegetation density surrounding buildings was studied. Six buildings, with different size and vegetation densities, were selected for this study. Daily carcass searches around each building were performed for 21 days, traffic intensity was determined via observation, and window area and vegetation density were calculated using ImageJ and ArcGIS respectively. Only one indicator of a BWC was found (a feather pile), thus there were not enough data to perform any correlation analyses between the factors mentioned above and BWCs based on the survey of SUNY Plattsburgh campus buildings alone. However, other BWC studies indicate that higher window area increases BWCs most strongly in areas of lesser development. This might be useful in focusing conservation efforts when planning major construction projects.