Missouri news

Windows can be fatal for birds. The Springfield Conservation Nature Center is doing something about theirs

KSMU | By Ben Verstraete

Published May 20, 2025 at 1:30 PM CDT

In theory, bird glass is installed by sticking a large sheet to a window, then peeling the paper backing off (much like a window decal). In practice, individual dots sometimes have to be peeled off and applied one-by-one.

The Missouri Department of Conservation's nature center has installed bird safe dots on its glass.

Birds, unsurprisingly, are unfamiliar with glass. So, where we see the sky reflected off of a window, birds just see the sky, fly into the window and break their necks.

Staff at the nature center, which has large storefront windows, tried to deal with this problem in the past by hanging landscape netting off the eaves of the building. But birds can get caught in that, and some snakes like to climb it. So last year, when the center made some significant renovations, they also started planning the installation of bird dots.

"They're small dots, about a quarter of an inch," explained nature center manager Rudy Martinez. "They have an adhesive to the back of them, they're vinyl, and they come on sheets."

Bird dots are spaced two to four inches apart, which breaks up the reflection enough that birds don't try to fly into the window. While they're pretty noticeable against relatively uniform backdrops – like, for example, a wall – they're fairly unobstructive to a natural view like that at the nature center.

If you want to take steps to make your home more bird safe, Martinez recommended a few things. First, you can generally tell if birds are hitting your windows by the little scratchy wing smudges they leave, or by the bits of down that stick to the glass.

Thin smudge marks, left by a bird's wing smacking the window, can faintly be seen center-right.

If your windows are an avian death trap, you might want to think about bird feeder placement: At less than three feet, birds can't build enough momentum to hurt themselves, and at more than 30, they're less likely to divebomb your windows.

It also helps to keep your lights off at night, especially during peak season for window collisions: Migration season, when the sheer volume of birds increases the odds, and nesting season, when aggressive tendencies in birds peak.

"[Birds] will see themselves in the reflection of the glass, and being as territorial as they are, they will continue to hit that glass," said Martinez.

Finally, there are a lot of things you can do to make your windows themselves bird safe. Martinez mentioned translucent bird dots you can buy online, but he also recommended Mylar tape, bits of string, the aforementioned landscape netting, or even just a screen.

The nature center's installation of bird safe glass follows the expansion of Blunt Hall on the Missouri State University campus, which also included bird dots.