Linn County Conservation turns to bird-safe film to reduce fatal window collisions at Wickiup Hill

TODDVILLE — Linn County Conservation will soon install a protective film on the windows of the Wickiup Hill Learning Center to reduce the number of fatal avian collisions.

The Linn County Conservation Board this week approved a $28,223 contract with Shades and Shields window tinting service for the film’s installation, which will take place at the Toddville nature center as weather allows.

“We get a lot of dead birds around the building because of all the glass, … so we’ve been looking for some time for a product that will help” reduce those collisions, Linn County Conservation Director Dennis Goemaat told the board.

The department’s experience speaks to a larger issue around avian-window collisions that results in the death of more than a billion birds each year, per U.S. Fish and Wildlife estimates.

Birds do not perceive glass as a barrier to avoid like humans would, and the glass can actually be attractive to birds because of the way reflections show aspects of the natural habitat or refract lights from the building’s interior.

The resulting collisions — which are most frequent during migratory seasons and at buildings shorter than four stories — more often than not result in injury and/or death of the bird.

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Conservation staff have tried several methods to reduce such collisions without success, which Goemaat said ultimately led the department to investigate the feasibility of a translucent, bird-safe film.

Per industry recommendations, the patterns — small, translucent circles in the case of Wickiup Hill — should be at least 1/4 of an inch in diameter and placed no more than 2 inches apart on the outside of the window.

The film “goes on as a sheet that apparently the birds are able to see,” Goemaat explained. “We’ve looked into reviews and that kind of thing, and it seems to be a really positive thing for others that have used it.”

The pattern breaks up the solid glass surface to signal to birds that it is not a clear flyway. Because the film is translucent, however, it causes minimal visual interference for the nature center’s human visitors.

Similar film has been installed at other public buildings within the Corridor, including the Marion Public Library and at F.W. Kent Park Conservation Education Center in Johnson County.

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