Spring 2023 Window Collision Monitoring Walk

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Today I returned to volunteer with the Bird-Safe Glass Initiative. Fortunately for the birds, my search today yielded 0 bird casualties in my search area. However, our instructor did find an Indigo Bunting and gave a short explanation of the specific species, which I thought was interesting and informative. As per usual, it was a great way to help support local wildlife while still volunteering and giving back to campus. The instructor and Ph.D. students running the bird walks are extremely knowledgeable and friendly and I intend to return and assist the Bird Safe Glass Initiative next Fall during my final semester!

I enjoyed this volunteer experience. I arrived at the Union fountain at 8 am on Wednesday to meet up with the rest of the group. My group was assigned the area of buildings including the library and Old Main to look for birds that have collided into the windows. I thought it was a good research idea to raise awareness about the amount of bird mortality on campuses due to window collision.

This was the second time I participated in a bird walk service opportunity with the Bird Safe Glass initiative. I had previously volunteered with the initiative last Spring and most of the procedures were the same. This time around, we were given maps of our designated search areas along with Ziploc bags to collect any bird specimens. These specimens would be sent to a laboratory at Yale University that works in conjunction with the Bird Safe Glass initiative to be preserve the specimens for future use in academia and in museums, which I thought was a great way to bring awareness to birds and avian species in Arkansas. Similarly to last year, we still collected data on where the birds hit windows on campus and thankfully my group reported no bird casualties on this particular morning. This is always a fun and engaging way to volunteer on campus and I will be back this upcoming Friday morning!

I have enjoyed volunteering weekly and gaining more knowledge about migrating birds.

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Searched campus for birds that had collided with windows.