Every year in the United States, up to 3.5 billion birds travel to the US during spring migration. Penn’s location along the Atlantic Flyway makes it an important stopover spot for birds during migration season. Though Penn’s campus provides important habitat, it is not without peril for birds due to their risk of window collisions. Glass surfaces and windows are dangerous for birds. They emit light at night and reflect the sky and vegetation by day causing birds to become confused since they cannot register these surfaces as solid objects.
Enter Bird Friendly Penn, an initiative led by the Penn Facilities & Real Estate Services Landscape Architecture Group in partnership with Penn Sustainability and Weitzman Landscape Architecture students. Along with other members of the Penn community, they are working together to make Penn’s campus friendlier for birds by reducing the number of window collisions.
People can support bird populations through simple tasks like turning off unnecessary lights, keeping curtains closed at night, or by applying bird friendly window treatments. As part of the Bird Friendly Penn initiative, a new lawn sign went up at multiple locations on campus this spring to encourage these habits.
To find out more about how you can help birds at Penn, visit Bird Friendly Penn.
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