Bird-deterrent films installed at several bus shelters at the NCSU campus.

Over the winter of 2022-2023, we learned from an NCSU Bird Club member who lives at Wolf Village (a university dorm) that many White-throated Sparrows were found dead at the Wolf Village bus shelters.

These sparrows often forage on the ground and fly near the ground when they move to a different habitat patch. They can’t perceive the transparent glass as a barrier. When they fly at high-speed trying to fly towards suitable habitat on the other side of the shelters, they would collide with the glass and die from the impact.

The numbers we are seeing is only the dead victims, stunned or injured birds could die elsewhere without being detected. These glasses pose a serious threat to the White-throated Sparrow population on campus. They are winter migratory birds and should be protected by the university.

To prevent further collisions at these shelters, in the spring of 2023, Jin wrote a grant proposal to the NCSU Sustainability Fund to obtain funding to support installing bird-deterrent films on those bus shelters highlighting the importance of sustaining bird population on campus.

With the support from Chris Dobek, Assistant Director for Parking Services and Facility Operations from the NCSU Transportation Department, and Sumayya Jones-Humienny, Associate University Architect at NCSU, the bus shelter project was officially approved on Apr 24, 2023 (the project is listed at the bottom of the 2023-2024 funded projects). The funding Jin obtained covered the expense of Feather Friendly dot markers (commercial solutions) and other related costs.

Once the products arrived, Jin recruited volunteers from FW403 Urban Wildlife Management class and the NCSU Bird Club to form a team to install the film on Sep 16, 2023. The whole team (top left photo) from left to right is Tessa Omer, Haylie Clayton, Jin Bai, Mataeus Funderburk, and Greivin Ulate Ramirez. We dedicated a total of 6 hours finishing the project from cleaning the glass to installing the films.

City Bird thanks everyone who helped this project!! City Bird will evaluate the effectiveness of the film from the 2023 Fall Bird-window Collision survey. The markers will prevent numerous bird collisions for many years to come and it’s also an initiative to show people and wildlife can coexist with careful designs of man-made structures. Below are pictures of the bus shelters after the films are installed.

Written by Jin Bai (09/19/2023).

The exterior view of the Wolf Village Bus Shelter A