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<\/a><\/p>\nMichael Mesure was visiting an office building in Scarborough in the early 2000s when it began to hail birds. Tenants were sitting outside at picnic tables when hundreds began dropping from the sky, some landing in laps and others in lunches. It was a disturbing and sobering moment, one that helped push his movement forward.<\/p>\n
Mesure is the founder of FLAP<\/a> (Fatal Light Awareness Program) Canada, a non-profit organization that works to protect migratory birds in urban settings across the country. He says he lost count after finding more than 500 dead birds over a six hour period that day \u2014 a result of the building\u2019s gleaming glass exterior.<\/p>\n According to FLAP\u2019s database, an estimated one to 10 birds die per building, per year. The City of Toronto currently has over 950,000 registered buildings, which pose a threat to over nine million birds annually. A research article<\/a> published this year found that between 100 million to 1 billion migrating birds are killed from building collisions across North America each year.<\/p>\n The vast majority of collisions occur up to 16 metres above grade (roughly the first five storeys) since that\u2019s the height of a typical tree reflected in the glass exterior of a building.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people don\u2019t realize is that when we\u2019re sleeping at night, there are hundreds of thousands of birds streaming over our rooftops just over a single hour period,\u201d Mesure said.<\/p>\n He and his team of 50 to 60 volunteers regularly roam the streets of Toronto in daylight and darkness in search of injured and dead birds. More than half of those found are dead, but many of the wounded are rescued and released back into the wild. Mesure says several species populations have dropped by 40 to 80 per cent since the mid 1970s.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are not seagulls, geese or sparrows that the average person pictures. These are neotropical migratory songbirds passing through the region to go to their nesting sites in Central Ontario,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Toronto sits on one of the busiest migratory corridors in the world. The birds use the nearby lakes and ravines as visual travel cues, but quickly become disoriented when the signals aren\u2019t there when they arrive. Mesure explains that enough time has not yet passed for those maps in their brains to change course.<\/p>\n Though the news is not all somber. In 2007, the City of Toronto introduced its Bird Friendly Development Guidelines<\/a> in an effort to make new and existing buildings less hazardous to migratory birds.<\/p>\n Developers are now required to incorporate bird-safe elements into all new residential and commercial buildings under Tier 1 of the Toronto Green Standard. Bird-friendly design guidelines also exist in other cities across North America, including Calgary, New York City and San Francisco.<\/p>\n Most new construction buildings must have some form of treatment applied to the glass to alert birds that they\u2019re heading toward a solid object. One of the most popular techniques is fritted glass, where the material is decorated with ceramic dots or a distinct pattern. Walk past 33 Yonge Street and City Hall (below) in Toronto or 8100 Warden Avenue in Mississauga and you can spot the markers affixed to the windows.<\/p>\n![\"birds](\"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/birds-sitting-on-a-glass-ledge-1024x716.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Sara](\"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Sara-ScharfFLAP-Canada-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo (above): Sara Scharf\/FLAP Canada<\/em><\/p>\n