How a Mount A student is saving birds from injury or death, one window at a time


CBC
Mon, October 9, 2023 

Mount Allison University's Barclay Building now has small stickers on the glass entryway to reduce bird collisions. (Submitted by Mount Allison University - image credit)

Students at Mount Allison University in Sackville might notice something different on campus this fall.

On the glass entryway of the Barclay Building, on the southeastern New Brunswick campus, circular stickers are placed five centimetres apart in an attempt to reduce bird collisions.

It's an initiative that was led by fourth-year biology student Mackenzie Warman, whose honours research specifically focuses on shorebirds.

"I've had the opportunity to take many courses, one specifically on science communication, and so I felt it was important to begin raising awareness about ways to reduce window collisions," she said.

Mackenzie Warman is a fourth-year honours biology student at Mount Allison University. She was concerned about the number of birds dying on campus from colliding with clear windows, so she tweeted a call to action for her school. (Submitted by Mackenzie Warman)

The stickers make the area visible to birds, so they won't try flying through it, causing injury or death.

According to the Government of Canada's website, since glass isn't a natural material, birds don't understand that reflections of trees or the sky aren't real. So, if they see something like the sky reflected in the glass, they will try to access it.

Warman said the first week of October is an especially important time to have these stickers in place because it's fall migration for migratory species.

Her interest began last year during spring migration when an American woodcock, a type of shorebird, hit a window on campus and was stunned. It later died when she tried to take it to the Atlantic Wildlife Institute for care.

The next day, she said an American robin crashed into a window and died on campus.

After two days in a row of bird fatalities, Warman knew she had to do something, so she tweeted a call to action for the university to do something about the problem.

That was when she heard from Jennifer Tomes, the dean of science, and a plan was set in motion.

The Barclay entrance at Mount Allison is now covered in hundreds of tiny stickers to reduce bird collisions. Warman hopes this will expand to other parts of campus. (Submitted by Mackenzie Warman)

Tomes said because Warman was so passionate about the project, she was given the task of finding appropriate solutions to the problem.

After Warman did some research and brought some solutions to the table, Tomes said various factors were taken into consideration, such as cost and the ease of the fix.

"Certainly one of the other options would be to replace with bird-friendly glass. But that's a lot of work. That's a lot of money," Tomes said.

"Whereas these stickers that are specially designed to decrease the likelihood of a bird window strike, are really quite easy to install, and at a good price point," she said.

But Tomes said that bird-friendly glass is being considered for any future renovations, including a library project that is underway. She said facilities management is already talking to the architects about installing bird-friendly glass.

Another part of the project involves facilities management tracking dead birds found on campus. The data will go into a spreadsheet for Warman to monitor, so she'll know what the most affected areas on campus are.

Warman said with any new builds or window installation, the number one thing that should be taken into consideration is how it will affect the ecosystem.

"When you think about it, they were all here before us. This campus is new in relation to the ecosystem. And so birds haven't had the chance to evolve and figure out that, 'oh, this reflective window is something that I can't actually go through,'" said Warman.

Jennifer Tomes, the dean of science at Mount Allison, said another part of the project involves facilities management tracking dead birds found on campus. (Submitted by Jennifer Tomes)

"So it's on us to begin to make our buildings bird-friendly and bird safe."

The cost-effective stickers can be easily used by anyone, said Warman, including homeowners, along with other easy solutions like fly screens on the outside of the windows.

As part of her project to educate people about bird collisions, Warman will be attending the Sackville Farmers Market for the next few weeks to talk about methods of prevention.

Small bird collision stickers were used for the entire entrance of the Barclay building at Mount Allison. Warman will be attending the Sackville Farmers Market for the next few weeks to talk about prevention methods. (Submitted by Mackenzie Warman)

Warman said while it's amazing to see the stickers up and it's a great accomplishment, she said it's the momentum the campus needs to start targeting other areas.

"We've done this small step, but there's still many other steps and places on campus that we can still work towards being completely bird safe," she said.

"But I think Mount Allison definitely has the room to be a leader in making universities bird friendly in Atlantic Canada."