Saskatoon city hall gets bird friendly ahead of fall migration

City installs window decals to prevent bird-window collisions

The days are getting shorter, the leaves are changing and birds are flying south for the winter.

With fall migration underway, Saskatoon will be a bit safer for birds to fly through this year.

The city, in partnership with Bird Friendly Saskatoon, put bird-friendly decals and painted dots on the windows on the north side of city hall.

The decals and dots, placed two inches apart, break up the reflections on windows that can confuse birds and cause them to fly into the glass.

"Without the dots, they just see a really beautiful tree that they can perch onto," said Michelle Tustin, a member of Wild About Saskatoon, a volunteer-run collective that advocates for policies that support the health of local ecosystems.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, bird-window collisions kill 16 to 42 million birds per year in Canada.

Jan Shadick, the executive director of Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation, said the downtown core of Saskatoon is a hot spot for bird-window collisions because of its proximity to the South Saskatchewan River.

"There are criteria that make certain windows in certain buildings more likely to be hit, which is precisely why this side of the city hall was covered, because you have beautiful trees that are reflected in the windows," Shadick said.

A volunteer-led project by Bird Friendly Saskatoon monitors bird-window collisions at certain downtown buildings in the city. It found the north side of Saskatoon city hall was a major problem area, with 20 bird-window collisions over a two-week period.

"Since the dots have been put up just recently, we had one bird that we found so far, and so we've seen massive success already in putting up these dots on the windows," Tustin said.

The Saskatoon Environmental Advisory Committee contributed $5,000 to purchase materials for the project, according to Tustin. She said volunteer effort played a big role in getting the dots on the windows.

"I know that took a lot of time and effort, and it's come out marvelously," Tustin said.

Tustin said she hopes this will be a catalyst.

"We want this to be a jumping-off point for the future, and we'll support that movement from our continued monitoring and volunteer support," Tustin said.

"Having this opportunity where there's a lot of glass, in city hall in the centre of our city, really means a lot in terms of demonstrating leadership on trying to improve the overall environment that we live in," Saskatoon Mayor Cynthia Block said about the project.

Tonii Frank is the fall collision monitoring coordinator for Bird Friendly Saskatoon. She told CBC Saskatchewan's Blue Sky she works with 20 volunteers to document evidence of bird-window collisions in downtown Saskatoon.

Frank said volunteers go out early in the morning to see how many and what types of birds are colliding with windows.

"At the end of the season, we will be doing some statistical analysis to see where these collisions are happening and focus on some ideas of what we can do to reduce those collisions," Frank said.

Shadick said getting the bird-friendly dots on city hall is an important step for protecting the ecosystem and reducing bird collisions. She said people can put dots on their own windows, or mark windows with soap, to help birds not smack into them.

"The reality is that birds pollinate our food and we would not have the crops that we have if we did not have birds. They eat all the insects. So they do pest management for us. They fertilize things," Shadick said.

"They are a huge component of our ecosystem."

Laura Gillis is a Regina-based journalist. You can reach her at laura.gillis@cbc.ca.