Spring has arrived in the most Chicago of ways ... The first bird has been rescued after hitting a South Loop window.
Chicago Bird Collision Monitors Annette Prince says an American woodcock was spotted Monday after hitting a window around 11th and Wabash in the South Loop, one of about 8,000 dead or injured birds her group will find this year during migration periods.
“It’s a bird that has very large and prominent eyes and, unfortunately, they often hit their heads and their eyes have some damage to it,” she says.
Birds have started heading north for the summer, some from as far away as South America and some of them heading to Canada.
Prince says, “Our urban area presents glass in all sorts of forms of buildings and balconies and bus stations that have glass walls to them and they don’t see them or they see a reflection that they think, oh, there’s a tree or sky I can fly towards.”
Prince says her group’s volunteers try to get to birds as quickly as they can just before sunrise. Otherwise, she says, after birds hit windows and land on downtown streets or sidewalks, they can be stepped on by people, toyed with by dogs or even grabbed by predators such as crows and gulls.
In recent years, she says, some downtown area building owners have been pro-active by making their buildings’ windows less of an attraction to migrating birds which tend to fly at night.
Some buildings have had film added to windows while others have had screening added to discourage birds from flying into the windows.
Prince says, “The FBI building in Chicago has added a netting that sits in front of the glass. It’s very imperceptible. It doesn’t ruin the view in and out but when birds see it or they touch it before they get to the surface of the glass and they fly away.”
She says McCormick Place used to be one of the most dangerous buildings in the city for birds until it added window markings last summer, causing a 95% decrease in birds flying into it last fall.
Prince says around 200 kinds of birds pass through Chicago during the spring migration.
Chicago Bird Collision Monitors is looking for more volunteers to patrol for injured and dead birds. If you’re interested, Prince says you can go to birdmonitors.net or call the CBCM hotline at 773-988-1867.
“It’s very rewarding when you save a bird from being hurt and get them safe,” Prince says.