Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
A long time coming...
It is with great happiness and relief to share that our paper was officially accepted for publication by PeerJ!
Will be back soon to post the entire paper when published.
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Abstract-
Collisions with glass are a serious threat to avian life and are estimated to kill hundreds of millions of birds per year in the United States. We monitored 22 buildings at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (VTCRC) in Blacksburg, Virginia, for collision fatalities from October 2013 through May 2015 and explored possible effects exerted by glass area and surrounding land cover on avian mortality. We documented 240 individuals representing 55 identifiable species that died due to collisions with windows at the VTCRC. The relative risk of fatal collisions at all buildings over the study period were estimated using a Bayesian hierarchical zero-inflated Poisson model adjusting for percentage of tree and lawn cover within 50 m of buildings, as well as for glass area. We found significant relationships between fatalities and surrounding lawn area (relative risk: 0.96, 95% credible interval: 0.93, 0.98) as well as glass area on buildings (RR: 1.30, 95% CI: 1.05, 1.65). The model also found a moderately significant relationship between fatal collisions and the percent land cover of ornamental trees surrounding buildings (RR = 1.02, 95% CI: 1.00, 1.05). Every building surveyed had at least one recorded collision death. Our findings indicate that birds collide with VTCRC windows in the summer breeding season in addition to spring and fall migration. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) was the most common window collision species and accounted for 10% of deaths. Though research has identified various correlates with fatal bird-window collisions, such studies rarely culminate in mitigation. We hope our study brings attention, and ultimately action, to address this significant threat to birds at the VTCRC and elsewhere.
I am writing to inform you that your manuscript - Year-round monitoring reveals prevalence of fatal bird-window collisions
at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center has been Accepted
for publication. Congratulations!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abstract-
Collisions with glass are a serious threat to avian life and are estimated to kill hundreds of millions of birds per year in the United States. We monitored 22 buildings at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (VTCRC) in Blacksburg, Virginia, for collision fatalities from October 2013 through May 2015 and explored possible effects exerted by glass area and surrounding land cover on avian mortality. We documented 240 individuals representing 55 identifiable species that died due to collisions with windows at the VTCRC. The relative risk of fatal collisions at all buildings over the study period were estimated using a Bayesian hierarchical zero-inflated Poisson model adjusting for percentage of tree and lawn cover within 50 m of buildings, as well as for glass area. We found significant relationships between fatalities and surrounding lawn area (relative risk: 0.96, 95% credible interval: 0.93, 0.98) as well as glass area on buildings (RR: 1.30, 95% CI: 1.05, 1.65). The model also found a moderately significant relationship between fatal collisions and the percent land cover of ornamental trees surrounding buildings (RR = 1.02, 95% CI: 1.00, 1.05). Every building surveyed had at least one recorded collision death. Our findings indicate that birds collide with VTCRC windows in the summer breeding season in addition to spring and fall migration. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) was the most common window collision species and accounted for 10% of deaths. Though research has identified various correlates with fatal bird-window collisions, such studies rarely culminate in mitigation. We hope our study brings attention, and ultimately action, to address this significant threat to birds at the VTCRC and elsewhere.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Birds fly free at Duke: CIEMAS adds patterned film
http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2015/08/birds-fly-free-at-duke-ciemas-adds-patterned-film
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
From the Fabricator: Birds and Glass
"There are many ways I can go with this story, but I’ll just say this:
There are options for bird-friendly glazing. And it’s time for the focus
to go from the glass being an issue to the glass being a solution. The
owner/architect needs to be on some of the hooks here. The materials are
there, and the designer needs to take into account bird migration paths
and design accordingly. While you’ll see in the linked article that
glass is listed as the bad guy, I sincerely hope that we as an industry
can stand up and note that it simply shouldn’t be all on us."
http://glassmagazine.com/glassblog/fabricator-birds-and-glass-1513912
http://glassmagazine.com/glassblog/fabricator-birds-and-glass-1513912
Duke ‘green’ building blamed for bird deaths
"One of the first Duke University buildings to be certified as
“green” appears to be causing more bird deaths than any other building
on campus. The Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary
Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences caused 85 bird deaths during
three 21-day surveys during the peak migration period spanning 2014-15."
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/durham-news/article24691264.html
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/durham-news/article24691264.html
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
NEW SPECIES - Killdeer
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| Photos: Mary&Pat |
Northern Flicker (Bldg. 7E).
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