A no-fly zone is an area where certain aircraft are prohibited from flying. A government or military typically establishes the zone for reasons of security, safety, or to prevent conflict. 

Had he been able, Kevin Alexander would have established a no-fly zone for birds outside his newly constructed home in Port Townsend 14 years ago.

Instead, almost every day shortly after he moved in, a songbird flew into one of his windows and died. 

“I couldn’t stand it,” Alexander told me the other day, “so I fixed it.”

He purchased a bird-collision prevention product called CollidEscape White Bird Film and applied it to windows that birds had mistaken for clear flight paths.

With CollidEscape in place, bird strikes effectively ceased. Alexander has experienced only a couple since applying CollidEscape more than a decade ago.

Regarding the perspective from inside his house, Alexander said the view is a bit fuzzy but clear enough. The strike deterrent has been a godsend for his peace of mind and a lifesaver for countless birds.

Our winged friends cannot see glass, so they often mistake windows for clear pathways through the air. Other birds confuse the reflection of clouds against a blue backdrop with an open sky.

The result is that collisions with windows kill 1 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone. One billion.
It’s a colossal number, nearly unimaginable.

If laid end to end, 1 billion Olympic gulls — the most common bird on the Olympic Peninsula— would form an unbroken line 10.7 times longer than the drive from Port Townsend to Manhattan.

Cats, particularly feral ones, are birds’ primary enemy. Windows are birds’ second-greatest threat.

Few options exist for dealing with feral cats. Similarly, little can be done about people who allow their bird-killing cats to roam.

Windows are an entirely
different matter. Alexander has shown that simple and cost-effective measures can greatly reduce the number of window strikes.

Christie Lassen, owner of the Wild Birds Unlimited store in Sequim, has been selling bird deterrents for 23 years. She has used them and received customer feedback, which has allowed her to weed out less-effective products.

“We sell three brands of window-strike deterrents in the shop. I like them all for different reasons,” she said recently. Lassen sells Feather Friendly tape, Window Gems prismatic decals, Window Alert UV decals, and Window Alert UV liquid.

Lassen offers the options because people and windows have varying needs. 

“I like the Feather Friendly the best,” she said. “However, it is very noticeable from the outside. You will see it, but so will the birds, which is the point. The cool thing about it is that from the inside, your eyeballs and brain get used to it.” In other words, you stop seeing the tape.

Feather Friendly offers two bird deterrent tapes with square dots for the exterior of windows. One features black dots spaced two inches apart, while the other features white dots. Visit the Feather Friendly website to determine which tape is best suited for your windows.

Be advised that both products use glue for adhesion. Once applied, a razor blade is necessary for removal.

That said, Lassen swears by Feather Friendly. If you’re determined to protect birds from your windows, Feather Friendly and CollidEscape will not disappoint.

The same is true for Window Gems, which are also sold at Wild Birds Unlimited. My windows feature a combination of Window Gems Tree of Life decals and Mesinurs UV Reflective Anti-Collision Window Bird Decals.

Window Gems decals are made of flexible prismatic vinyl that clings to windows statically (without glue) and casts colorful rainbows around a room.

The tree of life design appeals to me, but in my opinion too many of the reusable decals transform a room into an electric Kool-Aid acid test. So, I use them alongside the Mesinurs decals, which have a subtle, frosted appearance.

WindowAlert UV decals are also static-cling items with a frosted look. Also like the Mesinurs product, they reflect ultraviolet sunlight at birds for at least four months, after which they will need to be replaced.

WindowAlert offers a UV flashlight for $10 for testing its decals and those from other manufacturers, and it works well. The decals are easy to apply and can be peeled off without a tool.

I have not used WindowAlert Liquid UV, but Lassen has, and she stakes her reputation on its effectiveness.

“The UV Liquid is kind of amazing,” she said. “I have a bank of second-story east-facing windows that reflect back the sky like a mirror. I used the liquid to put big squiggles across the entire windows and since I started doing that, we have had no strikes on
those windows.

Lassen warned that the liquid, which needs to be reapplied every three to five months, is noticeable and “a little messy. It comes in a container that looks like a Bingo stamper, and if you squeeze the bottle while you are applying it, it will burble out and run down the windows. So, you have to be a little delicate with the application.” She said that Windex will remove messes.

Cindy Daily, the director and chief rehabilitator at Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue, urges people to contact the facility if they find a bird injured due to a collision with a window or a windshield.

Unlike cat-attack victims, which often succumb to bacteria in feline saliva, many birds that fly into windows manage to recover.

In addition to applying a daytime deterrent to bird strikes, Daily said that songbirds often migrate at night and use stars to navigate. Light pollution from artificial sources can obscure the stars and mislead birds, frequently resulting in fatal collisions.

She encouraged people to use their lights only when necessary, illuminating only the areas that require it, keeping the brightness to a minimum, opting for warm lights rather than blue lights, and selecting downward-facing lights.

Scott Doggett is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times’ Outdoors section. He and his wife, Susan Englen, live in Port Townsend.