‘Wisconsin Night Guardians’ works to protect birds from deadly window collisions
Oct 1, 2026 · 17 min · 8 segments
Hundreds of birds die from flying into glass buildings each year in downtown Milwaukee. But…
Oct 1, 2026 · 17 min · 8 segments
Hundreds of birds die from flying into glass buildings each year in downtown Milwaukee. But…
So this project originated nearly two decades ago now with the Wisconsin Humane Society.
About three years ago now, Urban Ecology joined forces to kind of manage more of the volunteer side of things and the data collection and analysis so that the Wisconsin Humane Society could focus on the rehabilitation of birds.
But it really is a large widespread problem of hundreds of millions of birds colliding with glass primarily on buildings and causing quite a high rate of mortality.
Second only to domestic cats.
Yeah, and I feel like a lot of people when they think of bird populations declining, they think of habitat loss.
And of course that is like the number one threat, right? But why is it so common for birds to fly into glass windows?
Yeah, so there are two big reasons that birds will collide with glass.
One is the glass itself.
So glass is not easily seen by birds because of how see-through it is.
Other times the glass can reflect habitat back.
So right now we're like at this big glass building, but there's lots of trees and vegetation.
They've made it really nice to like sit out here, but that's habitat for birds.
And so if it's reflected in the windows, they might try and fly into it to land and they'll hit the window.
But one of the big reasons
that they might end up around glass buildings, particularly like in downtown, is because of light at night.
That can disorient and confuse birds.
When that happens, sometimes they will land and just rest and hang out until the sun comes up.
And then when the sun comes up, We have the issue of like the glass looks see-through, the glass looks like habitat, so they might hit while they're trying to recover and seek refuge for the day before they migrate again in the evening.
So this project originated nearly two decades ago now with the Wisconsin Humane Society.
About three years ago now, Urban Ecology joined forces to kind of manage more of the volunteer side of things and the data collection and analysis so that the Wisconsin Humane Society could focus on the rehabilitation of birds.
But it really is a large widespread problem of hundreds of millions of birds colliding with glass primarily on buildings and causing quite a high rate of mortality.
Second only to domestic cats.
Yeah, and I feel like a lot of people when they think of bird populations declining, they think of habitat loss.
And of course that is like the number one threat, right? But why is it so common for birds to fly into glass windows?
Yeah, so there are two big reasons that birds will collide with glass.
One is the glass itself.
So glass is not easily seen by birds because of how see-through it is.
Other times the glass can reflect habitat back.
So right now we're like at this big glass building, but there's lots of trees and vegetation.
They've made it really nice to like sit out here, but that's habitat for birds.
And so if it's reflected in the windows, they might try and fly into it to land and they'll hit the window.
But one of the big reasons
that they might end up around glass buildings, particularly like in downtown, is because of light at night.
That can disorient and confuse birds.
When that happens, sometimes they will land and just rest and hang out until the sun comes up.
And then when the sun comes up, We have the issue of like the glass looks see-through, the glass looks like habitat, so they might hit while they're trying to recover and seek refuge for the day before they migrate again in the evening.
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