I was parked on a street downtown yesterday evening.  I saw something flapping under my car between my rear wheels as I approached to get in.  I thought it was a stray newspaper fluttering in the wind but then I noticed that there wasn’t even a breeze.  

I bent down to find a bird under my car flailing away.  I couldn’t tell what was wrong with it but there was no way that I was going to be able to drive away from the curb without injuring it further -- it wasn’t coming out.

As I was deciding what to do, three high school aged kids were walking by me.  I stopped them to see if they would help me lure the bird out from the car.  Together we were able to gently catch the bird, who clearly couldn’t fly, in the boy’s extra pair of gym shorts. We carried it to a nearby park with some bushes that it could hide in.   

We all felt horrible for the bird that had probably injured itself running into a window of the glass building looming above us.  As I drove away, the kids were still watching over the injured bird.   They clearly wanted to do more.  I did too but I didn’t know what else to do.  When I got home, I decide to find out what I could do and should have done.

What I found out is that it is migration season once again and unlike other environmental threats to birds – habitat loss and pesticide use – birds colliding into windows is something that happens often and a tragedy that we can all help prevent.  

Experts don’t know exactly how many birds are killed each year by hitting windows but it is likely in the hundreds of millions. They collide in the daytime when they see the outdoors reflected in the glass, not realizing that there is a window in the way.  At night, lights left on in tall buildings confuses migrating birds and can cause them to crash into the structure or make them circle repeatedly until they fall to the ground in exhaustion.    

Audubon of Minnesota has a program, Project BirdSafe, that is trying to reduce the numbers of killed and injured birds. They are doing it in part through the Lights Out Twin Cities which is a voluntary program where building owners, managers and tenants work together to ensure that all unnecessary lighting is turned off during spring and fall migration between midnight and 6:00 a.m..  The cool thing is that it works to reduce the number of killed birds and it also saves energy, lighting costs and greenhouse gas emissions.  It is truly a win-win program for everyone involved.

The other part of Audubon’s program gives tips so that anyone of us can help our feathered friends: 

•  Tell your employer about Lights Out Twin Cities and ask them to consider joining the effort.

• Make your windows at your home bird safe by moving bird feeders and birdbaths so that they are either within 3 feet of a window or more than 30 feet away. Also hang objects in front of windows that are hit by birds.  Not all windows are hit by birds identify your “killer windows” and break up the reflectivity.

•  If you find an injured bird in the Twin Cities, take it to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Roseville.

• You can volunteer to help survey downtown buildings during migration for fallen birds. Training is required so contact Audubon Minnesota.

Unfortunately, I knew only some of this information yesterday.  Had I known about the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Roseville, there would be one more recovering bird in their hospital today.