The potential for fatal collisions of birds with the new Benton County Courthouse was fully considered and accounted for by the architects, engineers, and site planners for the project. As any passerby has noted, the building's "footprint" is not square with either Highway 20 or the Willamette River, but is on an oblique angle approximating 45 degrees to those landmarks. As a result, rapidly approaching birds will not strike the window glass with a head-on dead stop, but will hit with a glancing blow only, and will usually be able to continue flying after a brief moment of disorientation. This well-documented phenomenon (known as the "Croney Effect") usually results in a reduction in mortality due to bird-building collisions from 80-90% down to the range of 30-40%.
Thank you for the info, very interesting and good to know. it is a very serious concern. It's not only window strikes that are decimating wild bird populations, but is one that we can certainly have some influence over (unfortunately we can't mandate all outdoor kitties wear bird notification collars). Hopefully somebody will be monitoring bird fatalities at the new building to see if additional measures need to be added to further reduce the risk of fatalities.
The potential for fatal collisions of birds with the new Benton County Courthouse was fully considered and accounted for by the architects, engineers, and site planners for the project. As any passerby has noted, the building's "footprint" is not square with either Highway 20 or the Willamette River, but is on an oblique angle approximating 45 degrees to those landmarks. As a result, rapidly approaching birds will not strike the window glass with a head-on dead stop, but will hit with a glancing blow only, and will usually be able to continue flying after a brief moment of disorientation. This well-documented phenomenon (known as the "Croney Effect") usually results in a reduction in mortality due to bird-building collisions from 80-90% down to the range of 30-40%.
Thank you for the info, very interesting and good to know. it is a very serious concern. It's not only window strikes that are decimating wild bird populations, but is one that we can certainly have some influence over (unfortunately we can't mandate all outdoor kitties wear bird notification collars). Hopefully somebody will be monitoring bird fatalities at the new building to see if additional measures need to be added to further reduce the risk of fatalities.
Thanks for this! We’ll update the article with this information.
This silly article got me to subscribe. Thanks for the punny good writing 😁
It can’t be serious all of the time right? Try our best to mix it up. Although the bird issue might be real… and serious… at some point