Bird-Friendly Development Best Practices - What & Why

What's Happening Now?

SDCI encourages builders, homeowners, and others to voluntarily consider best practices for bird-friendly building design and construction.

Bird-Safe Best Practices

• Reduce Artificial Light at Night
  Consider ways to turn off unnecessary lights to avoid bird window collisions.
• Think Collision Deterrent Retrofitting
  Consider ways to reduce collision risk through collision deterrent retrofitting when remodeling an existing building.
• Bird-Safe Glass
  Consider installing bird-safe glass to reduce bird mortality.

Thoughtful Bird-Safe Building Design

A major part of bird-safe building design is thinking about the types of bird species that likely have habitats nearby and acknowledging that Seattle is in the Pacific Flyway when doing new construction and renovation. The Pacific Flyway is one of four major North American migration routes for birds, especially waterfowl, and extends from Alaska and Canada, through Seattle down to California, to Mexico and South America. Each year, birds follow ancestral patterns as they travel the flyway on their annual north-south migration. Some general suggestions are: 

• Consider bird species and habitats nearby.
• Talk to a bird expert and learn more about current best practices that might be helpful. See  Bird-Safe Regulations: Where and what are they? by Birds Connect Seattle.
• Visualize how to make use of best practices when designing your project. See Supporting Bird-safe Buildings by Mass Audubon.

More Information:

• See the City of Vancouver, BC Bird Safe Strategy
• Learn more about New York City, NY Bird Friendly Guidance

Project Benefits

By following best practices for bird friendly building design and construction, developers can help reduce the number of bird fatalities caused by flying into windows.

The End Result

Our webpage provides suggested best practice information to the public.