St. Louis is the sixth-most dangerous city in the U.S. for fall migratory birds, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Many species of birds are drawn to the light of the region’s urban areas, where their chances of hitting a building increase.
“There’s the issue of transparent glass, where birds don’t realize it’s there and try to fly through it,” said Matt Barton, urban conservation specialist with the St. Louis Audubon Society. “There’s also the issue of really reflective glass [that reflects] the environment around them. They think perhaps they can fly to a tree that’s nearby, but it’s actually a reflection.”
The St. Louis Audubon Society launched BirdSafeSTL in fall 2020 to gather more data and to promote solutions to prevent building strikes. Since then, Audubon staff and volunteers have recorded more than 1,500 building-related bird fatalities in downtown St. Louis and downtown Clayton alone. It’s estimated that nearly 1 billion birds are killed by hitting buildings each year…