Fatal Light Awareness Program Canada

It's Day 4 of Global Bird Rescue!

Thank you to everyone who has been out patrolling and documenting bird-window collisions this week.

Remember, you don’t have to patrol to be part of Global Bird Rescue. You can educate people in your community about bird-window collisions or make your own windows bird-safe.

We still have a few days to go! Have you been participating? Let us know what city you’re in below.

The first day of Global Bird Rescue coincided with a high migration day, with volunteers across participating cities heading out early to document bird-window collisions and rescue birds that survived.

In downtown Toronto alone, FLAP Canada volunteers rescued 19 live birds, all of which were transported to Toronto Wildlife Centre for care. Among the birds rescued was a Whip-poor-will, a threatened species in Ontario.

Thank you to everyone who patrolled, documented collisions, transported injured wildlife and contributed data to the Global Bird Collision Mapper on Day 1.

And this is only the beginning of Global Bird Rescue week.

Global Bird Rescue starts now!

We'd love to see your participation! Share photos of your patrols, bird-safe window treatments, advocacy efforts, or anything else you're doing as part of Global Bird Rescue.

Be sure to tag us and use so we can share your posts with the community.

Thank you for being part of this event. Every action you take helps create a safer future for birds.

With Global Bird Rescue just a couple of days away, we wanted to share one way you can help birds before a collision ever happens: making problematic glass safer.

Feather Friendly Bird Collision Deterrent Markers has been a sponsor of Global Bird Rescue for several years, and we’re very happy to have their support again this year. Their window markers are one of the most effective ways to treat existing glass. Applied to the outside of a window in a closely spaced pattern, the markers help birds recognize glass as a barrier instead of trying to fly through reflections of trees and sky.

And we know this approach works. Feather Friendly has been installed on buildings that were experiencing regular bird collisions, with documented projects showing dramatic reductions after the glass was treated. For example, at Chicago’s McCormick Place, 120,000 square feet of glass was treated with Feather Friendly markers, reducing recorded bird deaths during fall migration from 1,280 in 2023 to just 18 in 2024 - a reduction of more than 95%.

Global Bird Rescue is coming up September 21-27, and searching for and rescuing birds that have collided with glass is just one way to participate. If you know of problematic glass at your home, workplace or in your community, consider treating it and helping prevent collisions in the first place.

Learn more about Global Bird Rescue and ways to get involved at globalbirdrescue.org.

As of September 15, FLAP volunteers have documented 1207 birds that have collided with glass. 275 of them were found alive, including this Ovenbird that was rescued by Katie in downtown Toronto.

Join us this Sunday, Sept 20th at the Long Branch Tree Fest!

12-4pm at Marie Curtis Park

Coming up on Tuesday September 22– please join us for a fantastic webinar all about enjoying birds you can see this fall around cottages and second homes!

Hosted in partnership with our friends at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Ontario Nature, we’ll learn about tools for tracking bird migration, the types of birds you can find in habitats in rural areas, and techniques for making glass around cottages and second homes safe for birds.

We’ll also be giving away FREE PRIZES from Feather Friendly Bird Collision Deterrent Markers to lucky winners in the audience.

Make sure to register today to reserve your spot!
https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_x7YhiQBtTd22eoHRT6Aweg #/registration

Please share this widely with individuals or groups who may be interested.

Our panelists include:
Dr. Adriaan Dokter (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) is a research associate on the BirdCast project team. Adriaan studies the seasonal migrations of birds, from the continental-scale movements of species to the fine-scale behavior of individuals flying through the atmosphere. His research uses weather radar networks as well as individual tags to address questions in migration ecology, including when and where birds migrate, when and where birds die within the annual cycle, and how shifting patterns in mortality and recruitment of young birds cause bird abundances to change. He also develops software tools for biologists using weather radar as a tool in their research. Adriaan holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam.

Andrés Jiménez Monge (Ontario Nature) is a Costa Rican-Canadian biologist with 15+ years of experience in conservation, philanthropy and environmental innovation. He has led land stewardship at Ducks Unlimited Canada in Ontario, managed a national conservation portfolio at the Weston Family Foundation, and created Ontario’s first Indigenous-led bird guide at Birds Canada. He holds a MES from York University with an emphasis in Business and Sustainability from the Schulich School of Business. Andrés enjoys nature-finding with his kids and is learning Anishinaabe Mowin.

Michael Mesure (FLAP Canada) is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Fatal Light Awareness Program. Michael has worked tirelessly for over 30 years to address bird collisions with buildings, bringing attention to the reflective light issue that impacts over 1 billion birds across North America every year. Michael focuses on solutions to help mitigate the challenges of bird migrations in built environments. He advocates for bird protection at various levels of government, as well as consults with industry professionals and NGOs across the globe on developing bird-friendly building standards. His time is spent partnership-building and enabling collaborations to promote bird conservation and contributing content to ornithological-focused research.