Meet FLAP Canada volunteer Anne van Elsen, dedicated to bird rescue volunteering in the Toronto area since 2010.

Bird watching has been my favourite activity for three years, and is especially rewarding during the pandemic because it allows me to rediscover the city by meeting my feathered neighbours. From noticing the saucy gait of a Rock Pigeon’s strut, to the House Sparrow’s counterintuitive dust baths, to the warrior-like cries of the Red-winged Blackbird as he punishes a jogger for encroaching on his territory, I’ve come to appreciate the unique personalities of my neighborhood birds.

Learn about three FLAP Canada achievements from 2020, from the Global Bird Rescue, active social media engagement and awareness building, contributions to the development and adoption of bird-friendly building guidelines in Ottawa, and more.

The best coffee growing regions of the world also overlap with some of the most biodiverse regions of the world (such as Latin America). When the native forest goes away to make room for sun coffee, so do the birds and other animals that rely on those forests.

As we enter into colder weather in North America, most of the migratory birds have already made their passage south. Sadly, many of these birds never arrive at their wintering grounds because they are killed or injured from collisions with glass during their migration.

Meet FLAP Canada volunteer Vicki Soon-Ai Low and hear about their experiences volunteering to support birds since 2007.

Glass railings are bird-killers. The toll on the local birdlife can be extensive. As anyone who has volunteered picking up injured or deceased birds knows, birds cannot perceive glass. Glass railings are especially dangerous, as birds see the vegetation beyond and attempt to fly-through, with, usually, disastrous results. These results happen whether the glass railings are at a cottage deck, an urban park, or a condominium.

In our research, we learned that it is not only bad for birds and other wildlife when cats wander at large, but it is also bad for cats. Outdoor cats have shorter lifespans, have a higher chance of acquiring infectious diseases, are at risk of wildlife attacks, and transmit diseases themselves.

Homeowners may be shocked and disheartened when a bird hits their window, but the sad truth is that this happens much more frequently than people think. In Canada, an estimated 25 million birds perish every year due to collisions with glass. 90% of these collisions are thought to happen at single family homes.

This is a Northern Waterthrush, a migratory songbird in the warbler family that is quite eager to leave the forested wetlands of North America for its winter home in the flooded mangrove forests of the tropics. Read on to learn three things you probably didn’t know about these energetic early migrants.

As a founding member of the Fatal Light Awareness Program, I am all too familiar with the painful thud of a bird hitting a window….at the glass towers of downtown Toronto. I’d never known – and never expected – a bird to hit a window in my own home. 

Meet Ben Coleman, FLAP Volunteer since 2018. Learn about Ben’s dedication as a volunteer working to support birds and drawing attention to the bird collision issue.

Many homeowners have experienced the heart-breaking thud of a bird hitting their window. Unfortunately, this happens much more frequently than most people realize, but there are many simple and affordable ways to prevent other birds from meeting the same fate.

Millions of people across Canada feed wild birds as a way to enjoy nature and help birds. But did you know you might actually be putting your feathered friends’ lives in danger by doing so? Feeding birds is not without risks, and one major threat claims the lives of millions of birds every year: collisions with glass.

Learn how bird vision contributes to the risk of bird collisions with windows. Through the development new methods to measure how birds see windows and glass modifications, this bird conservation research could help industry to produce materials that send strong visual signals to birds as they are approaching a solid barrier (to slam on the brakes or swerve, fast!).

Luckily, you can prevent birds from having a fatal collision with your windows by providing them with visual cues that glass is present. There are lots of do-it-yourself options to treat your windows at home. To be most effective, it’s important that markers are closely spaced, high contrast, and on the outside surface of the glass.