birdsafepgh

While springtime is not as busy as fall, spring migration brings a large number of birds into the area in a short amount of time causing dense groupings to enter the city in quick succession.  Adult breeding males and females are heading to their breeding grounds to set up territories.  Many migrants travel throughout the night and drop in at first light to refuel after a few hundred miles of flying.  If they find themselves in the city, they can quickly become stuck in a maze of invisible barriers that may look like trees or open sky.  Unable to tell the difference between a real tree and a reflected one, they could fly towards what they believe to be another tree but end up hitting a window at full speed.  Unfortunately, most birds die on impact while others are lucky enough to recover after a few minutes and try again to escape the city.

BirdSafe Pittsburgh volunteers monitor the streets of downtown during the early hours of day to look for injured or dead birds that can be captured and rehabilitated or collected as specimens for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.  Injured birds are taken to the Animal Rescue League’s Wildlife Center in Verona where they are rehabilitated and released again to continue their journey.

This past spring (January 16 – July 7) volunteers spent 188 hours searching (table 3) and collected 108 birds, 23 of which were stunned and captured for rehabilitation (table 1).  We also had a large number of species found this spring with a total of 41! That’s an increase of 5 species from 2015 and 12 species from 2014 (table 2).

Table 1.) Birds found during BirdSafe Pittsburgh monitoring January 16 – July 7, 2016

Species	Dead Birds	Stunned Birds	Total
American Robin	3	1	4
American Woodcock		1	1
Baltimore Oriole	1		1
Bay-breasted Warbler	1		1
Black & White Warbler		1	1
Blackbumian Warbler		1	1
Blue Jay	1		1
Brown Creeper	3	1	4
Brown Thrasher		3	3
Cedar Waxwing	9		9
Common Grackle	3	1	4
Common Yellowthroat	2	3	5
Dark-eyed Junco	1	1	2
European Starling	2		2
Golden-crowned Kinglet	1		1
Gray Catbird	5	1	6
Hermit Thrush	1		1
House Finch		1	1
House Sparrow	3	1	4
Indigo Bunting	3		3
Magnolia Warbler	1		1
Mourning Dove	2	1	3
Nashville Warbler	1		1
Northern Cardinal	2		2
Northern Flicker		1	1
Northern Waterthrush	3		3
Ovenbird	4	1	5
Red-eyed Vireo	1		1
Rose-breasted Grosbeak	3		3
Ruby-throated Hummingbird	1		1
Song Sparrow	3		3
Tennessee Warbler	1		1
Unknown Species	3		3
White-throated Sparrow	4		4
Willow Flycatcher	1		1
Wood Thrush	5	2	7
Worm-eating Warbler	1		1
Yellow Warbler	1		1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	5	2	7
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	2		2
Yellow-rumped Warbler	2		2
Grand total	85	23	108

Table 2.) Comparing species totals from spring of 2014, 2015, 2016.
(* denotes species were only found in that year’s spring)

2016 (41)	2015 (36)	2014 (29)
American Robin	American Robin	American Robin
American Woodcock		American Woodcock
Baltimore Oriole*
Bay-breasted Warbler*
Black & White Warbler	Black & White Warbler
	Black-billed Cuckoo*
		Black-throated Green Warbler*
Blackbumian Warbler*
Blue Jay		Blue Jay
Brown Creeper	Brown Creeper
Brown Thrasher	Brown Thrasher
		Canada Warbler*
Cedar Waxwing	Cedar Waxwing	Cedar Waxwing
	Chestnut-sided Warbler*
Common Grackle	Common Grackle	Common Grackle
Common Yellowthroat	Common Yellowthroat	Common Yellowthroat
	Cooper’s Hawk*
Dark-eyed Junco*
	Eastern Lowhee*
	Eastern Whip-poor-will*
		Empidonax sp
European Starling*
Golden-crowned Kinglet	Golden-crowned Kinglet
Gray Catbird	Gray Catbird	Gray Catbird
		Gull sp*
	Hairy Woodpecker*
Hermit Thrush*
	Hooded Warbler*
House Finch*		House Finch
House Sparrow	House Sparrow	House Sparrow
	House Wren*
Indigo Bunting*		Indigo Bunting
		Kentucky Warbler*
Magnolia Warbler*		Magnolia Warbler
Mourning Dove	Mourning Dove
Nashville Warbler*
Northern Cardinal	Northern Cardinal
Northern Flicker	Northern Flicker	Northern Flicker
Northern Waterthrush	Northern Waterthrush
		Northern Rough-winged Swallow*
Ovenbird	Ovenbird	Ovenbird
	Pine Warbler*
Red-eyed Vireo*
	Red-winged Blackbird*
Rose-breasted Grosbeak*
	Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-throated Hummingbird	Ruby-throated Hummingbird	Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Song Sparrow	Song Sparrow	Song Sparrow
Tennessee Warbler	Tennessee Warbler
Unknown Species	Unknown Species	Unknown Species
	White-breasted Nuthatch*	White-breasted Nuthatch
		White-eyed Vireo*
White-throated Sparrow	White-throated Sparrow	White-throated Sparrow
Willow Flycatcher*
Wood Thrush	Wood Thrush	Wood Thrush
Worm-eating Warbler*
Yellow Warbler	Yellow Warbler	Yellow Warbler
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Yellow-rumped Warbler		Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)

Table 3.) comparing the hours volunteers spent walking routes and looking for dead or stunned birds from the spring of 2014, 2015, and 2016

Year	Sum Total of Hours
2014	84
2015	213
2016	188
Grand total	485

If you would like more information about how you can get involved in helping us learn more about window collisions in the Pittsburgh area visit this page.  You can also follow us on Facebook and email us at birdsafepgh@gmail.com

The cover story of Carnegie Magazine’s Summer 2015 issue is about our efforts to reduce window collisions.  It primarily focuses on the research conducted by the American Bird Conservancy at Powdermill Nature Reserve, where bird-safe glass prototypes are (safely) tested in a flight tunnel.  I (Matt Webb) worked on this research in the tunnel for four migration seasons, from Spring 2013 through Fall 2014.  This work naturally led to the founding of BirdSafe Pittsburgh, which is also featured in this article.

We’re very excited about being featured so prominently in such a respected publication!  Click on the image to read the article online, or if you happen to be visiting one of the four Carnegie Museums, pick up a copy for yourself!

BirdSafe Pittsburgh’s spring 2015 season has passed its one month mark! We began monitoring on April 1 and in the entire month of April, 10 volunteers put in roughly 92 hours walking routes throughout downtown. 26 birds were found in the month of April, of which 4 were found alive. Of these 4 live birds, volunteers were unable to capture 2 of them, and the other two were taken to the Animal Rescue League’s Wildlife Center in Verona, PA, where they were eventually released back into the wild.

The entire list for April is as follows:
American Robin – 3
Brown Creeper – 1
Brown Thrasher – 4 (one of which was alive and released!)
Cedar Waxwing – 1
Eastern Towhee – 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet – 1
Hairy Woodpecker – 1 (alive, escaped capture)
House Sparrow – 1
Northern Cardinal – 1
Northern Flicker – 2 (one alive, escaped capture)
Pine Warbler – 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet – 1
Song Sparrow – 1
White-breasted Nuthatch – 1
White-throated Sparrow – 1
Wood Thrush – 1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – 4 (one of which was alive and released!)

Though it is disheartening to see these numbers and species, each of these birds has given us more information on the problem of window collisions in Pittsburgh. By collecting this data, we can get at where collisions are more likely to occur, and we can better focus our efforts to solve the problem.

As we move into the month of May, however, we are in need of more help! Just in the first 4 days we have already found 6 birds, including 3 Wood Thrush, 1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird, 1 White-throated Sparrow, and the male Yellow Warbler seen below. We will need people covering routes, creating new routes throughout the city, checking their houses, and driving birds to the Wildlife Center! To get involved, email birdsafepgh@gmail.com

This week The Allegheny Front, Pennsylvania’s environmental radio program, featured BirdSafe Pittsburgh in their weekly episode.  You can listen to the entire episode here, or just the BirdSafe Pittsburgh report here.  The Allegheny Front has a wide reach through all of the stations that carry their programming, and an even wider audience through their website, so hopefully this coverage will translate into a larger impact as more people become aware of what we do and what everyone can do to help!