The latest in a long history of fortuitous encounters occurred a couple of years ago when Paul Riss, Senior Art Director for DDB Toronto, an advertising agency, became aware of the scope of the bird/building collision issue.

A birdwatcher since childhood, Paul attended a FLAP workshop hoping to rescue birds hitting Toronto towers. A short while later he discovered that his wife was pregnant with twins. This happy development meant he'd soon be getting up early to change diapers and soothe babies, not rescue birds.

Still eager to help, Paul discussed the issue with his partner, Matt Antonello (Senior Writer at DDB), an owl lover, as chance would have it. They hit upon the idea of creating a field guide containing 10 species that fall victim to Toronto's office towers. The only difference between a traditional field guide and this one would be that all the birds illustrated would be dead. "We wanted a hard-hitting piece that would stick with people and make them remember that there's a real issue behind the images," said the team.


Cover
Sample of inner page
They persuaded their company to pursue the project, writing the text and supplying maps of the birds' distribution in Canada. Publishing of the booklet was co-ordinated by Rose-Ella Morrison; it was printed by Transcontinental PLM. Barry Kent MacKay produced beautiful colour drawings of deceased birds and FLAP provided 16 years of bird collision statistics and rescue experience.

A Field Guide to Common Birds of Toronto was the result. And it's already winning awards: accolades have come from Applied Arts Advertising Annual and Communication Arts Annual, industry publications that showcase great work on an international level.

This unique field guide is meant to inform and inspire those who love birds to take action and make a donation to help support FLAP progrmas like the Great Lakes Light Out Initiative. The back cover is devoted to a synopsis of the bird/building collisions problem and the work FLAP has done to mitigate it.

To download your free copy of Common Birds of Toronto, click here


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