Just noticed a lot of bird strikes at the new glass bus shelter downtown

I walk past the Main Street bus stop near the library every morning, and I swear I've seen three dead birds on the ground there this week alone. The shelter is all clear glass panels, maybe 8 feet tall, and it totally reflects the trees across the street. I stopped and looked at it yesterday, and it's like a perfect mirror during the morning light. My neighbor works for the city and said they put it in back in March without any bird safe markings. Has anyone else noticed this kind of thing with newer public structures or am I just looking too hard?

2 comments

2 Comments

adam_anderson61mo ago

Drive by the library stop around 7am sometime and you'll see what I mean. The reflection is so clear the birds just fly straight into it thinking it's open sky. You're not looking too hard, this is a real problem with these modern glass shelters. Put in a call to the city's public works department, they've got a whole program for adding bird safe decals or dots to problem spots. I had to do the same thing with a glass noise barrier behind my house a few years back, and they came out and installed the markers in like two weeks.

hayes.tara1mo ago

The bigger issue might be that these glass shelters don't just confuse birds at first light, the mid-morning sun creates a mirror effect that lasts for hours. Those bird decals work fine on flat surfaces but these curved shelters throw reflections at odd angles that simple dots can't fix. Maybe the city needs to look at a different material altogether like frosted or etched glass that stays bird safe all day long.