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The glass at McCormick Place in Chicago is a lethal obstacle for birds
- Condition1952 3y agoI looked out the window yesterday for a few minutes. I think I heard a chirp faraway among the natural traffic stream. The silent spring is coming.
- Condition1952 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring?wprov=sfti1
- gmerc 3y agoRegulation is the answer here since the mitigation methods are known
- zdragnar 3y agoRegulations have existed in Chicago for over 50 years. The building predates it, and has been adding mitigations such as changing lighting and applying stickers for some time now. This is not a common occurrence for the building in question.
- whydoyoucare 3y agoNot just birds, but with everything else in life, I tend to first check if regulations exist before advocating for (more) regulation.
- gmerc 3y agoIt’s not a binary question. Effective regulation (including timely updates such as mandating seat belts or airbags once they become possible) very much is a living ongoing project.
- rhizoma 3y agoToronto has had bird-friendly design guidelines since 2007. Surprised Chicago still hasn’t implemented a solution. https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/official-plan-guidelines/design-guidelines/bird-friendly-guidelines/ https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/...
- nortirn 3y agoChicago does have an ordinance requiring bird-friendly designs in new construction or renovations, but it was passed in 2022 and the convention center hasn't had window work done since then.
- kasey_junk 3y agoBoth Chicago and Illinois have bird friendly building ordinances but the building in question was built in 1960 long before they existed. It’s also massive so mitigations will take a long time to be applied.
- hh3k0 3y ago> It’s also massive so mitigations will take a long time to be applied. Surely it cannot be too hard to slap 2 or 3 anti-collision decals on every window from the outside?
- kasey_junk 3y agoThere are stickers on the building. It is a nearly 600000 square foot building and the exterior is all windows. 1000 birds don’t hit it _every day_ this was an exceptional even caused by specific conditions. The facility is actively trying new lighting solutions to mitigate bird strikes as that’s the main issue.
- ethagknight 3y agoA crew of window cleaners could hit it in under a week
- nicolaslem 3y agoI highly encourage anyone who had birds crash on their windows to install white dot stickers. I installed some last spring on my windows and not a single bird crashed on them since. At first they look a bit odd, but after a week they were almost invisible, turns out the brain is really good at hiding things we don't care to see. They are a bit of a pain to install but it is well worth the effort.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoThis also works for humans, who have a tendency to walk through glass sliding doors if no pattern is applied. https://www.purlfrost.com/blog/stop-people-walking-glass-patio-doors/ https://www.purlfrost.com/blog/stop-people-walking-glass-pat...
- xoa 3y agoWorth mentioning there are pricier but even more invisible, similar idea solutions. I've got stickers I put on my house and have suggested to clients that are translucent in the visible spectrum but strongly reflect UV. Lots of birds (and in particular songbirds, these are on rural residential buildings with no more than 3 stories so raptors aren't going into them) have receptors for ultraviolet, so to them the stickers look opaque glowing white. They're effective and may be more aesthetic, though again more expensive (they need to be replaced every 6-9 months, the chemical that reflects UV breaks down). Another approach I've used is a sticker that simulates a golden spider web. While not translucent, the thin web look is very subtle, but apparently a lot of birds have evolved to be very hard wired to avoid flying through heavy spider webs so it triggers an avoidance response well. Finally, there are bug screens that have gotten very subtle too (high density thin weave with low visibility materials used in their construction). As well as reducing external reflection, those will just plain act as a softer shock absorber if a bird runs into one. And of course keep out insects, so doing their job anyway. I'll add that I still do have (far fewer) bird hits once in awhile, but the big change seems to be outcome. Before a lot of birds died. Afterwards what seems to happen is the hits still see it at the last moment, and the hits have 99% turned into bellyflops. Not fun for the bird no doubt, but it also isn't lethal, they just fly away. Bird death in my experience is generally caused by broken necks, they fly in head first and their neck snaps and that's it. So even if they swerve as the very last moment, it's still a huge boost in survivability. On a big building it might help to have some nets out of sight below windows though so that birds which are temporarily stunned don't fall all the way to the ground.
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- tapland 3y agoGloomy weather? Lamps on in the office? This creates a bird death trap.
- xnx 3y agoFor buildings that don't have permanent bird strike mitigation measures built in, I wonder if temporary whitewash applied by window cleaners would help.
- HankB99 3y agoIt seems to me that that would be an effective temporary solution, but would have to be re-applied following rain. The bigger problem would be cost. The building in the article is McCormick place which was hit pretty hard during Covid and is likely still recovering (financially.) But no business is likely to spend the $$$ to mitigate the issue unless they are forced. The bigger problem is that this is not the only building in Chicago that is hazardous to birds. Fix this one and there will be another noteworthy for the "most bird strikes" in Chicago.
- xnx 3y agoI didn't realize it was McCormick place when I posted. That building is probably particularly bad because it's right on the shore of Lake Michigan (a bird migration superhighway). Ironically/tragically, the situation might have been made worse in recent years by the reestablishment of native plants in the immediately surround area. I'm certainly no expert, but I wondered if temporary whitewash might be more amenable to the building owner than something more permanent. It is a massive building complex, but might even only be necessary to do the north facing side. The roof overhang might allow it to stick around for a few peak-migration weeks.
- darwin2023 3y ago[flagged]
- civilitty 3y ago[flagged]
- dinkleberg 3y agoI think it is safe to say, regardless of the total population, that 1000 birds dying in a single day as a result of an architectural decision is unfortunate.
- civilitty 3y agoIt is “unfortunate”
- bungeonsBaggins 3y ago[flagged]
- civilitty 3y agoIt’s a some birds flying into windows during a mass migration of a million and a half birds. Animal rights? Jesus christ. Go touch grass.
- lowkey_ 3y agoIt's proportionally like the equivalent death toll of NYC on 9/11 or slightly higher. In NYC, 1 in 4000 people died on 9/11. In Chicago, 1 in 2000 birds died the other day. (Not to say it's equivalent at all, just that it's certainly a newsworthy event to the birds).
- NoblePublius 3y ago[flagged]
- armarr 3y agoDepends on which species we're talking about.
- adeelk93 3y agoNorth America’s bird population has declined by 3 billion, or 30%, in the last 50 years https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back/ https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back/
- NoblePublius 3y agoBecause of cats
- taway1237 3y agoThere's no shortage of people, and yet we frown upon unnecessary deaths. Your response sounds quite callous.
- beebeepka 3y agoI checked this person's history. Unless you always see the good in people, no matter what, you will not be surprised
- NoblePublius 3y agoBirds are not people.
- kimburgess 3y agoBug in the latest firmware. Should be patched during the next recharge or OTA for the newer models.
- joe__f 3y agoThe numbers here are staggering....
- sinuhe69 3y agoIn one migration day, not every day, as I initially thought what the title suggested.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoYeah, you start to run the numbers (multiply by 365 days in a year, times the number of buildings in Chicago, times the number of cities...) and you see a mass extinction before next Spring.
- fbdab103 3y agoSimilarly, but then I realized I had never heard anyone warn me, "Stay off of Canal street. By 1pm the stench of the hundreds of bird carcasses really starts to hit you. Dead bird retrieval does not happen till 7pm."
- bbarn 3y agoMildly related anecdote: At one job, we had an expensive office built out as our company grew. The CEO and CTO came in from out of town to do the ribbon cutting so to speak and welcome us to our new office. I was there as a manager doing setup before we moved the main workforce into the new office, and the CTO came through the kitchen to talk to me, and smashed his face right into a glass wall. Broke his nose and had to fly home eventually. The day before the team moved in, I convinced the CEO rather easily to put the company logo decalled on that wall.
- giantrobot 3y agoWhen Apple Park first started migrating teams a number of people walked into the glass doors in the hallways. They pretty quickly put up little markers on the glass. It was still a stupid design not built for humans.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- whycome 3y agoPeople adapt and become less human... There must be a weird sort of anxiety to walk around and be extra cautious that reality can suddenly turn into a glass wall.
- zo1 3y agoI once ran into a glass door in my house a few years back. For months after that, I had anxiety and "flashback" like replays of the event when walking anywhere near that door/area in my house. That one incident affected the functioning of my brain for a really long time, it was quite jarring.
- tomcam 3y agoI mowed into a ground nest of hornets at my house a few months ago. Took me over a month to get back in the saddle. I "felt" the stings every time I walked near that patch.
- sandworm101 3y agoI worked in a building that attempted to address this. The three-story glass lobby had its glass wall raked outwards by 30*. If you approached the glass from inside then your feet would contact it before your face, which really helped at night when outside was brighter than the interior. And birds on the outside would see a reflection of the ground rather than transparent glass. All seemed good. Until a convention of blind people booked the lobby for a meeting. When they approached the building from the outside, their canes did not detect the glass wall prior to their faces smacking into it. We hurriedly erected foot-high barriers so their canes has something to see before impact.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoDo blind people not have feet? I’m confused by the geometry of this story.
- joe_guy 3y agoOn the inside your feet would meet the wall first. On the outside your head would. They were outside.
- constantly 3y agoThey’re talking about the two groups approaching the raked wall from the inside versus the outside.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoAh I missed that thanks!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- alexvoda 3y agoThe ground floor really doesn't need to be like the rest.
- hinkley 3y ago
- fallinghawks 3y agoTwo websites that detail methods to prevent window strikes at home: https://abcbirds.org/solutions/prevent-home-collisions/ https://abcbirds.org/solutions/prevent-home-collisions/ Scroll down to Popular Blog Posts https://flap.org/ https://flap.org/
- ReptileMan 3y ago[flagged]
- nilamo 3y agoI didn't realize lamb could fly.
- ReptileMan 3y agoIn the west it's mostly chicken.
- nilamo 3y agoHow far west? I'm in Michigan, and almost always lamb unless specifically mentioned otherwise.
- ReptileMan 3y agoContinental EU
- hhh 3y agohttps://www.guardianglass.com/us/en/our-glass/guardian-bird1st-uv https://www.guardianglass.com/us/en/our-glass/guardian-bird1...
- zw123456 3y agoI had this happen at my place a number of times, my house is up on a hill with large windows facing the view. I didn't want to put stickers or other things that would detract from the view. A neighbor mentioned that they put up a couple of decorative hanging plants off to the side of the windows, didn't have to be right in front which would block the view. I opted for a couple of hanging outdoor art pieces (I have a brown thumb). It worked, my theory is it gives the birds something to gauge perspective on perhaps. I am not sure how that could work for skyscrapers, but for a home like mine it worked like a charm.
- beebeepka 3y agoWere there any incidents before your measures? I may face a similar problem and it concerns me because I really don't want to harm anyone, including birds and insects.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoWe'd had a very warm fall until Wednesday of this week. Temperature dropped 30 degrees. Birds had been enjoying the warm weather and then the sudden change had them all migrating at once. They ran into a rainstorm which made migration very difficult (this is called fallout). So now you've got tons of birds struggling to migrate and aiui flying at lower altitude because of the rain McCormick (the building in question) is a very large building immediately off the lake with lots of glass windows. There may be some additional mitigations to be made but it's a bad confluence of events. It doesn't happen even once a decade. This is an important migration corridor, there's even a nice bird sanctuary within site of McCormick. If you're ever there for a convention the area surrounding the convention center is very nice. Northerly Island is becoming one of the nicest parks in Chicago, and is a wonderful walk from the convention center.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 99_00 3y agoI keep the venitian blinds down but open for our problem window.
- wink 3y agoHow can you write such an article and not put a photo of the building there? Yes, I can search one but WTF.
- silenced_trope 3y agoRight!? I came here to ask the same question and Cmd-F-ed to this comment. I had to google it to see the photos of the building.
- logifail 3y ago...and - with apologies to all HN cat owners - I feel we might want to put building lethality into context by recalling that: "free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals [in the USA] annually" https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
- hypertexthero 3y agoI side with the cats :) https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/08/06/dont-blame-cats-for-destroying-wildlife/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/08/06/dont-blame-cats-for-d...
- worik 3y agoOn a related bird/window note: Where I live there are many birds - we have been encouraging them for years after nearly exterminating them carelessly. Two in particular, an indigenous bird we call the Fantail, or Pīwakawaka, and the common Starling. The starlings occasionally blunder inside the house, and they cannot get out, they will repeatedly smash into the same window, over and over, until they brain themselves and loose consciousness or we take mercy and catch them and evict them. The Pīwakawaka on the other hand will come in an open window, fly into every corner of the house looking for, catching, and eating flies, then fly out the window they came in. One day I carelessly shut the windows with a Pīwakawaka in the house. I was sitting at my computer and the Pīwakawaka flew at my head, repeatedly, until I got up and opened a window for it to escape. Birds can be remarkably stupid ("bird brained" for a reason) or they can be simply remarkable.
- jamiek88 3y agoGuessing NZ?! Yes birds when they are smart can be very, very smart. I am pals with a couple of blue jays who eat my sunflowers. They chase off the crows who torment my dog. The crows will swoop at Kramer the poodley mutt and it drives him crazy. His genetics make him a small game hunter and excellent ratter. He looks like a lap dog and can be one but give him prey around and he’s a monster. He caught a crow dive bombing him once which just got him desperate to do it again. The pugs just ignore them thus the crows don’t bother diving at them but they learned from the one failed attempt. They also had what seemed to be a funeral for their fallen soldier. I plant fifty or so sunflowers every year to fatten up the blue jays for winter and help protect their nest from the hawks that linger too. Quite the little deal we have. There’s a distinct call they’ll make when they want help with a murder of crows or a pair of hawks. The hawk scream is higher pitched that’s a defcon one. I work from my garden mostly so respond quickly with the high pressure hose that can reach to the top of the tree they nest in to chase off our enemies if my jay homies are outnumbered a lot.
- ourmandave 3y agoDo they have a maintenance crew that goes out and cleans up all the dead birds? =(
- exabrial 3y agoIf it's culling the infestation of dammed "Rock Dove" aka "city pigeons"... how do I get one in my city?
- MrTrvp 3y agoReminds me of the mass insects dying from car windshields, but that is a much tougher issue to tackle than a stationary building