Birds and buildings have rarely had a healthy relationship, and the problem tends to get worse in the spring. As bird migration increases, so do fatal bird collisions with buildings. Facilities managers for decades have used a variety of measures to deal, from barriers to landing and nesting to noise-producing technology designed to scare them away.
Two Utah State University professors recently tried to change bird behavior to prevent collisions, and for a while, they did. The solution came from an experiment led by Kimberly Sullivan, who teaches ornithology and Mark Koven, who teaches technology, development and technical education and had done research in ultraviolet light. They came up with the idea to install poles outfitted with ultraviolet lights aimed at the University Inn’s windows that had been the scene of previous collisions.
Most birds can see ultraviolet light, so when this light is projected onto windows, it makes the glass appear more like a solid surface and less like a reflection. Lovell says that between May and November 2023, only a couple of birds flew into the windows, compared to the dozen that typically died each month.
Once the experiment ended and the poles were removed, the bird collisions began again. Eventually, the school’s facilities department told her they had to be taken down.
Sullivan says the installation dramatically decreased the number of birds hitting the mirrored side of the window, but it was a temporary installation. The building's mirrored windows remain a problem, so the researchers are seeking grant funding to test different and more aesthetically pleasing methods of casting ultraviolet light onto the glass.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.?
