by Mona Mahadevan The New Haven independent
Anna Oppenheimer, Emily Gilmore and Cora Blessing: three avid readers and nature lovers! (Right now, their favorite books are The Golden Compass, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Endling).
The New Haven Fire Department at the Mitchell Library, not to fight fire but to fight reflections!
Under the watchful eyes of three intrepid seventh graders, local firefighters armed themselves with sheets of polka-dot stickers during a Thursday morning mission to save birds.
Four firemen climbed ladders and pasted decals on seven windows of Westville’s Mitchell Library, aiming to create enough visual noise to chip away at the glass collisions that claim one billion bird lives ever year.
Anna Oppenheimer, Cora Blessing, and Emily Gilmore — 12-year-olds who attend Ezra Academy — have been pushing for bird-safe libraries for almost two years.
“Birds are great,” exclaimed Cora. “They’re very important in our ecosystem, and they’re very cute.” Emily agreed, though she noted that she loves all animals, including the ones she’s allergic to.
Anna, Cora, and Emily are all members of the same group, or k’vutzah, of the Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM). Anna, who leads the group, said the idea for bird-safe libraries came up when they were “looking for local problems to solve.”
Reflecting on why it’s so important to protect birds, Anna said, “Our ecosystem is already so weak and getting weaker by the day.”
Plus, they all love birds and nature. Cora’s favorite is the osprey, while Emily prefers hummingbirds. “They’re super fast,” she said. “It’s super cool how their wings can beat that fast, and they’re really small.” Anna was torn between hummingbirds and blue jays, which she described as “very beautiful.”
Anna and her k’vutzah decided to do some research on bird safety and found a map, created by the Yale Bird-Friendly Building Initiative, that tracks the number of deadly bird strikes in the city. While only one bird collision has been documented at Mitchell, the group realized the library’s tall, reflective windows likely claimed more bird lives than had been reported.
Anquille Wright, a security guard at Mitchell, confirmed their theory, estimating that he’d seen ten to 15 dead birds outside the library over his three-year tenure. Rebecca Weiner, a volunteer adult advisor for JYCM, said Library Superintendent Jim O’Hair believes 120 birds are killed by Mitchell’s windows every year.
(Weiner’s favorite bird is a crow. Crows, known for giving gifts, have brought “so many shiny little things” to Weiner’s family, including pen caps and bits of mylar balloons. But the best present? A broken piece of a rosary. Weiner’s father-in-law — a devout, 103-year-old Catholic — stores the piece next to a cross that Pope Pius XII blessed after her father-in-law was shot in the head during World War II.)
After researching more about bird safety, a number of JYCM members wrote passionate letters to Marian Huggins, the branch manager of Mitchell Library, requesting her blessing to make the building more bird safe.
Huggins remembered those letters fondly, describing Anna, Cora, and Emily as “such sweet girls.” She hadn’t realized there was a problem with bird safety until receiving the letters, but figured that “if even one bird died in ten years, those girls would want to save the next one.”
Once Huggins agreed, the group’s next question was a practical one: What’s the most effective, least obtrusive way to stop birds from hitting windows?
To help answer that question, Weiner, who was lauded by Anna, Cora, and Emily for making Thursday’s event happen, connected the JYCM kids with experts from the Yale Bird-Friendly Buildings Initiative and Lights Out Connecticut, an Audubon Society organization that advocates for reducing light pollution.
Meredith Barges — policy researcher for bird-friendly buildings and co-founder of Lights Out Connecticut — said the most effective interventions create enough visual noise to stop birds from mistaking glass for habitat.
“Glass creates a lot of distortions and optical illusions of invisibility, transparency, and reflectivity,” explained Barges. Birds, flying at 25 to 30 miles per hour, may not perceive a barrier or mistake the building’s reflection as more nature. Of the birds that collide with buildings, many are killed instantly, said Barges, and 60 percent of those that fly away die later from their injuries.
Scientists have been documenting avians collisions since the 1880s, when birds were flying into oil-powered lighthouses. According to Barges, “the real problem began when our buildings became really glassy.” (Barges, like Anna, said her favorite bird is the blue jay. “If they weren’t as common,” she said, “we’d just marvel at them.”)
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service attributes building collisions as “a leading cause in the loss of 3 billion birds in North America since 1970.” The Audubon Society, a nonprofit dedicated to bird conservation, found that North America has lost one in four bird species over the last 50 years.
Bird species are “in very steep decline,” lamented Alex Krofta, a member of Lights Out Connecticut. In addition to glass, he blames light for disrupting the ecosystems of birds and bugs.
“We made the entire world bright,” said Krofta, but “darkness is habitat.” (Krofta’s favorite bird is the common nighthawk, the species that sparked his love of birds).
Barges emphasized that birds, especially insectivores, don’t fly into buildings because of some eye- or brain-related defect, noting that “even humans crash into glass sometimes.”
To mitigate the number of collisions, Barges said buildings can be retrofitted with window decals, art, metal screens, exterior blinds, and hanging paracords. At Mitchell, avian experts recommended decals and paracords for the highest windows, and then a mural painted by the kids on the lower ones.
The interventions “can be extremely beautiful” or at least inoffensive, said Barges, citing McCormick Place and The Statue of Liberty Museum.
The decals cost around $1,200 and were sponsored by a micro-grant from the Greater New Haven Green Fund. They’re estimated to last ten to 15 years and be at least 90 percent effective.
According to Cora, decals make sense because they’re “quite simple and sturdy.” Painting, Anna noted, may block natural light, while the stickers are hard for humans “to see from most angles.”
After getting approvals, finding the money, and receiving the decals, the last logistical challenge was finding someone willing to climb high enough to install them. Wayne Vetre, captain of the New Haven Fire Department’s Central Station, and three of his firefighters were thrilled to step in.
Explaining why they agreed to help, Vetre said, “This is what we do. We’re part of the community.” He said that it was especially nice to support this project, since it’s being spearheaded by kids and “for a good cause.” (Vetre’s favorite bird is a hummingbird. “My wife and I put feeders up all over the deck,” said Vetre).
Over time, Anna, Cora, Emily, and the rest of their JYCM k’vutzah hope to retrofit all of New Haven’s public libraries, but they don’t currently have the funding. For now, the plan is to finish up work at the public library branch at 37 Harrison St. and head over to the Fair Haven Branch in the next few weeks.
Weiner, Krofta, and Barges discuss their options for the windows they can’t cover with decals.
…as Vetre watches, making sure that they’re safe!