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At least 1,000 birds died from colliding into a single building in Chicago on Thursday, 5 October, as they migrated south to their wintering grounds. Volunteers are still recovering bird carcasses within 1.5 miles of McCormick Place, the largest convention center in North America, which is largely covered with glass. They all died after colliding with the iconic building’s transparent glass walls, which birds simply cannot detect.
Not every bird that hits the window is going to leave behind a body. The true extent of affected birds will unravel over a couple of days as people continue to pick up birds around downtown Chicago.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Yikes! We have had may 2-3 birds hit a window on our house over the years, but they were usually drunk from eating too many of our Holly berries. Maybe at this time next year they can figure out some way to cover the glass for a few weeks.
My parents had the problem of hummingbirds flying into the screen on their screened porch and not being able to get out. My dad would find one or two every now and they and just push on the beak to get the body off the screen.
While R value of single pane windows is pretty low, double pane windows are on the order of 3-5 (cf- 6 inch framed walls with insulation on the order of 20-30) and evenhigher with coatings....But all engineering solutions involve compromises-- the strength to weight ratio of glass is much superior to other building sheanthing-- an extremely important consideration when you're going up with 80 stories of skyscraper.
The glass also allows for better passive heating in winter, but more difficult cooling in summer. What to do? The designed engineers have to answer those kinds of questions all the time.
Chicago is located right in the middle of the major N/S bird migration flyway. Many of the "population studies" are done by counting carcasses at the base of the skyscrapers there, then extrapolating those numbers to the total bird population.... Recent counts are way down compared to earlier counts so they claim there are many fewer birds around-- but that doesnt take into account the major land use changes in Chcagoland over the past 80 yrs-->
When I was a kid there in the '50s, the north border of urbanized Chicago was about 10 miles north of The Loop, Beyond that it was mostly farmland until you got to Milwaukee...Now, the Chicago-Milw corridor is amost all suburban, manicured lawns and black top. The birds are flying north along paths farther to the west.
I hadn't seen a Baltimore oriole in Chicago since the early 50s (except at Comiskey Park) and was thrilled to find an abundance of them where I retired to in central WI.
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