What One Window Can Do
What One Window Can Do
by Isabelle Pardew
It was a beautiful November evening of last year—the sun beginning to cast its shadow earlier than past days, a chill permeating the air just a bit more—a perfect night for cruising the skies, relaxing on a branch, or just hanging out—perfect conditions. Yet, when you think about it, perfect conditions for what, exactly? Yes, a bird strike. On the Towson University campus, right outside the West Village Commons. A Red-tailed Hawk struck the large, East-facing, tree-adjacent window and was immediately placed into a cardboard box by TU Campus Security, who prepared the hawk for transport to the wildlife rehabilitator, since he was in critical condition. After nearly five months of constant care and monitoring from the amazing crew at Phoenix Wildlife Center, the hawk was released in to the wild on April 1, 2021—quite the joyous result!
You can read the full story of what happened to the hawk and see photos of him, linked here.
Birds collide with windows during the day due to reflection of the surrounding environment—such as trees—in the window. During spring and fall migration, migratory birds who use the stars for navigation collide with windows due to the decorative exterior lighting. Lights Out Towson University, which works to prevent bird-window collisions on campus, is on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and Phoenix Wildlife Center’s website is linked here.
This incident led me to go through the involved process of increasing Lights Out TU’s Club package status last fall, in order to receive extra funding to retrofit the most dangerous windows—for birds—on campus. Lights Out TU is also currently working with facilities management to obtain window decals and monitoring cameras within our budget.
Categorised in: General
This post was written by Walczak, Robin