Birds collide with buildings and windows for two reasons:
- They do not see glass; instead they see the reflection of the sky and landscape in a window and find it a place of refuge or habitat.
- Birds that migrate at night use constellations as their guide and are often diverted from their path by light from building windows
In February 2014, Markham Council endorsed the Bird Friendly Guidelines and is committed to fostering bird friendly buildings by:
- Retrofitting existing municipal buildings to meet the Bird Friendly Guidelines
- Incorporating bird friendly design standards into new municipal buildings
- Continuing to encourage best practices in private sector developments.
Turn off your lights
- Reduce light pollution during the night, and save energy!
- Ensure exterior lights face downwards and not towards reflective surfaces
Reduce Window Transparency
- Apply a patterned film every 10 cm in vertical columns, or every 5 cm in horizontal rows.
- Close your curtains and blinds during the day; this will help keep your home cooler too!
Move Houseplants
- More your plants away from the window, this prevents birds from being attracted to them as a place of habitat and refuge.
Relocate your birdfeeder
- Place your bird feeder half metre away from windows or place it on a nearby tree for best viewing opportunities.
Ecological Integrity is a designated priority under the Greenprint. One of Markham’s objectives under this priority is to increase biodiversity. Following through on a recommendation in the Greenprint to achieve this objective, Markham endorsed the Bird Friendly Guidelines in February 2014.
Implementing the Guidelines also increases biodiversity by contributing to a dark sky policy, and raising awareness on wildlife in the community, two additional recommendations under this objective.
Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) provides resources on what to do when you find a dead or injured bird. The first thing you can do is help FLAP track bird-window collisions by entering the incident in their FLAP Mapper – this tool is used as an international bird collision database to understand where these collisions are happening, and what can be done to prevent them.
In order to administer any necessary aid to injured birds, please refer to the Toronto Wildlife Center's Bird Rescue Tips, or call their Wildlife Hotline at 416.631.0662
