I heard the reverberating bang. Another bird. I ran outside, expecting to see a dazed or (I prayed not) dead mourning dove. This was a beautiful little cedar waxwing, no life left beneath its soft-as-silk feathers.

Yesterday, I'd had better luck. I was playing ball with Ted (woof) and Mazie (meow), who mostly watches, while talking on the phone to my brother. Suddenly, bang. In an instant, Mazie was pouncing on a live dove as Teddy ran to investigate. I screamed, "No!" to the pets and "Gotta save bird" to my brother, dropped the phone, and managed to lift the still befuddled bird out of harm's way.

It stayed calm (or, more likely, semi-conscious) in my hands and let me pet its neck. When I got it to the locked gate separating the front and back yards, I held it up over the top and opened my hands so that it rested on my open palms but was no longer enclosed in my fingers. In an instant, to my relief, it flew away.

The cedar waxwing was the third dead bird I'd found and disposed of in just two weeks and my neighbor had done the same with two others. The waxwing, finally, got my attention. Not because I didn't mourn the doves (I did) but because the waxwing was a much rarer visitor.

It was time to stop the carnage.

I have been amazingly dense about why the birds were dying. I knew to watch in the summer for dead birds that might be victims of West Nile disease and had seen a few mosquitoes already this spring. Then my suspicions were aroused by a neighbor complaining about bird droppings on his sidewalk and wondered if he or another of my less-than-nature-loving neighbors was putting down poisonous spray. I even thought that I might unwittingly be feeding them tainted seed - a bird's version of salmonella in the peanut butter.

Eventually, my dimwittedness lifted and I put bang and body together in the same compartment in my brain. It was obvious to me at last: MY WINDOWS ARE KILLING MY BIRDS.

Googling this phrase, the grim reality hit home with the first page of search results. As many as a billion birds a year are killed by flying into windows - in North America alone.

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Allow me to digress a moment to explain what this is like from a human standpoint. My mother and I were leaving our small hotel in Paris when Mom slammed into a totally transparent glass entrance door. Although she hit her forehead against it and left a smudge of make-up, she was very fortunate to be more startled than hurt. I turned to the hotel clerk behind me and said sternly, "Something should be done about that. It's very dangerous." When I turned back, I, too, walked straight into that invisible piece of glass. Now imagine that same scenario if Mom and I had been flying toward the door at 20 to 60 mph.
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For birds the problem of glass, beyond the speed at which they are meeting it, is threefold: transparency, particularly where windows placed across from each other create the illusion of a clear flight path; reflection, giving back the mirror image of trees and sky; and nighttime lights that, especially in a city, frequently confuse and disorient birds.

Birds trying to make their way through once free and open space on their migratory journeys or simply getting around their own local habitats cannot detect the hard, impassable, unforgiving sheets of glass. And because of that, they are being decimated in enormous numbers. (See
http://www.nycaudubon.org/NYCASBirdWatch/Project_Safe_Flight.pdf.)

It isn't only windows that kill birds. Communication towers, high tension lines, cars, pesticides, oil spills, electrocution, lead poisoning, wind turbines, electric wires, nets or hooks intended for fish, feral cats, and disease take a huge toll of our bird populations. BUT WINDOWS, after the loss of habitat, ARE THE NUMBER ONE KILLER OF BIRDS. More information is available at http://www.sibleyguides.com/mortality.htm

Many people are taking up bird-watching in this country and elsewhere and want to know what they can do to stop our winged friends from dying. Solutions for homeowners are as simple as the Christmas stickers that I stuck all over my windows, alerting the birds to something solid in their path.

Here are other ideas on how to help both your local birds and those who migrate through your area. Be sure to see the video from the Humane Society of the United States at the bottom for additional tips.

Give birds a chance by using any of these methods:

• Large bird decals that look nearly invisible to the human on the inside looking out but very bright and cautionary to the bird outside looking in (http://www.windowalert.com/?gclid=CMj_nILIt5kCFRBbagodNmG54w).
• Hawk and owl silhouettes on the glass or 3-D plastic models mounted on the roof. (For obvious reasons, these are not recommended if you want to attract, feed, and enjoy song birds nearby).
• Wing chimes, made by combining CDs with an optical allusion. (http://www.flap.org/cd_chime/cd_how.htm)
• Old CDs, chains, or ribbons hung with fishing wire from your eaves - anything, in fact, that hangs down over the window and acts as a warning and deterrent.
• Special film you can use to cover your windows that allows you to see out but stops window reflection and, therefore, bird strikes. http://www.collidescape.citymax.com/page/page/6049375.htm
• Screen dots that prevent people, pets, and birds from crashing into your sliding glass doors. http://www.thedoordot.com/
• Soccer grade netting that provides space between it and the window. This can create a 'trampoline' effect but the net must remain very taut at all times or birds may become entangled in it.
• Suction-cup feeders on windows.
• Installing windows without dark reflective glass or black screens that hide it.
• Closed blinds or shutters.

For more, see http://www.flap.org/new/prevent.htm

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Another brief digression: Birdwatchers and many others will be fascinated by this site and its introduction to a fascinating new book (and true story). http://www.oliviagentile.com/
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