
'Zen curtain' saves birds from hitting glass windows - elorant
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-28/the-curtain-saving-birds-from-hitting-glass-windows/11638774
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HeyLaughingBoy
They should make one for people.

A Midwest bank was remodeling their in-supermarket branches with glass walls.
It looked really spiffy and let in a lot more light. Then a few weeks later
they had decals up on some of the glass panels and they were frosting others
and I asked a teller why they changed.

It turns out that many people were slamming into the glass walls, usually when
turning a corner quickly, (my guess: while staring at their phones!) and
hurting themselves, so the bank decided it was better to get ahead of the
inevitable lawsuit and make the clear glass more visible.

How we've managed to survive this long as a species is beyond me.

~~~
lainga
The African savanna is very coal- and coke-poor -- for most of our species'
early history, our natural predators, like lions and cheetahs, were unable to
produce sheet glass in large quantities. When humans started moving north into
Eurasia, where coal deposits are more common, they were saved by the fact that
the ursine glass industry was depressed by terrible protectionist laws up
until the Bearton-Woofs Agreement in 1944.

~~~
aitchnyu
The comment was funny enough, the animal puns sends it to another dimension.
Heads up:

> 1944 Bretton Woods agreement established a new global monetary system. It
> replaced the gold standard with the U.S. dollar as the global currency.

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Mediterraneo10
The glass walls that line motorways in Poland have black decals stuck on them
that look like the outlines of birds of prey. Supposedly, birds can’t tell the
decal from the shadow of an actual threatening species that they would prefer
to avoid, and so they don’t fly anywhere near the walls.

~~~
catalogia
> _" glass walls that line motorways"_

I've never heard of this, why is it done? For aesthetic reasons? It seems like
it would be marginally less practical than solid barriers which would block
out headlights at night.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
These barriers are put up for sound-proofing reasons. Mostly the barriers are
opaque, but one often encounters the glass ones at the points along these
routes when they run through towns. Here, the glass barriers provide
soundproofing without blocking one’s view of the surrounding cityscape.

~~~
hanniabu
sound-reducing reasons*

Sorry for the nitpick, but I live near a highway with one of these barriers
and it's in no way sound-proofing.

~~~
tempestn
Were you able to experience it without the barrier?

~~~
hanniabu
No, but with it I can still hear the highway. I'm sure it's certainly not as
bad as it is without it, and I'm thankful it's there, but it's still audible.
It sounds like it's maybe 2 or 3 blocks away vs right in your back yard.

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kirykl
My current desk faces a large wall sized window, ground floor, all glass
building, surrounded by trees. At first I was excited to finally face a
window, but I have seen SO many birds slam into it and die on impact. Walking
around the perimeter, depending on the time of year, you'll see dead birds
every 20 feet or so. this sounds promising

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RenRav
Just that small building causes 4-5 bird deaths per day? Good lord.

The picture in the article reminds me of an old youtube video that suggests
painting thin white vertical stripes on your windows. Supposedly the birds
avoid flying between the vertical gaps. Horizontal lines aren't as effective.
I wonder who first discovered this method.

~~~
luc4sdreyer
> Just that small building causes 4-5 bird deaths per day? Good lord.

He did say that it only happens during "this time of year". Collisions with
buildings kill up to 1 billion birds per year in the US [1], so that sounds
about right.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power#Birds)

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rolandog
This reminds me of the awareness efforts by the Nature History museum in
Rotterdam with the celebration of Dead Duck Day [1].

The case study's[2] abstract documents:

_On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the
glass façade of the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard
raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes._

Quite an interesting—albeit disturbing—read.

[1] [https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/activiteiten/dead-duck-
da...](https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/activiteiten/dead-duck-day/dead-
duck-day-2019.html)

[2]
[https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/doc...](https://www.hetnatuurhistorisch.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/documents-
nmr/Persberichten/Persberichten/persberichten_2013/DSA8_243-248.pdf)

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derefr
Perhaps less visually distracting to the people inside the buildings, would be
to create the same “striating patterns” on the building using those large
decals that are used for public-transit advertising.

~~~
ghostly_s
Yes, this is also common and covered in the article...

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davidhyde
Nice to see Twitter finally being used solve problems for birds themselves.

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ShteiLoups
I wonder if the same tactics can be applied for apple developers...

~~~
RankingMember
We did it to ourselves with this modern "glass walls and doors everywhere"
design trend.

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tzs
I wonder how this actually works?

I regularly place seeds on my deck railing to feed the birds (and the
squirrels). They knock some of the seeds to the deck floor.

Some birds go for the seeds on the deck floor. Those birds frequently fly
between the balusters, both when coming and going. The balusters are 1.5"
across, with 5" gaps between them.

Based on watching those birds, I would not have expected a "zen curtain" to
help. I'd expect birds to think they could simply fly through the gaps.

~~~
tedunangst
The birds aren't aiming for seeds on the other side and have no motivation to
fly through the ropes?

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drakonka
> Mr Hines has been burying the birds that die in the nearby garden, and has
> been taking the birds that survive to a local vet.

I thought Lorikeets were classified as pests in both Western Australia and
Queensland. A few years ago my mother and I found an injured baby Rainbow
Lorikeet in the middle of the road (some kind of wing injury). We put it in a
box and went to the vet. Right before handing it over, I happened to ask the
receptionist: "You guys aren't going to just kill him or anything, right?"

That is when the receptionist decided to tell me that because Rainbow
Lorikeets are considered pests, that is exactly what they would do. They
wouldn't even look at the bird's injury.

I took him home instead; he recovered and went on to live with me. I really
hope that this person had some kind of agreement or assurance from the vet
that they would actually help the birds. Of course not every bird that flies
into a window can be saved, but if he was taking them there expecting them to
get some kind of general diagnosis or treatment those birds may not have
gotten the ending he was expecting.

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goda90
My place of employment desperately needs something like this. We have a number
of sky bridges between buildings that are just a suspended hallway with floor
to ceiling windows on both sides, so to birds it looks like they can fly
through. We're located at the edge of the city, so there are just rolling
hills of farmland and more natural space for birds to approach from. I
regularly see dead birds under the sky bridges.

~~~
lostlogin
Maybe stick something on the inside of the window?

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anonytrary
What I find fascinating about this is that there's probably a set of neurons
in bird brains that specifically fire when looking at vertical lines. Here's a
live recording of this effect from a cat[0], also known as the Hubel and
Wiesel[1] experiment. Now those are being triggered, causing the bird to avoid
the glass. This is an exceedingly simple solution to the problem. Very
impressive!

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw5PKV9Rj3o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw5PKV9Rj3o)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsten_Wiesel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsten_Wiesel)

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hanniabu
This is an old trick used on homes, except window paint (typically white) is
used to make thin vertical lines about 6 inches apart. It doesn't affect your
view and it doesn't look ugly if you use a straight guide and thin lines.

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coldcode
My previous house one year a male Cardinal thought he saw a rival in a window
and attacked it over and over again for what seemed like hours (his
reflection). The female sat on the fence and I could swear was enjoying it.

~~~
nilram
That happened at my house (though with a different species). I closed the
shade, which disrupted the reflection, so that the bird would not harm itself
or waste its energy unnecessarily.

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spiznnx
My house has large glass windows. The temporary solution (nothing more
permanent than a temporary soultion) to the frequent dead birds was to stick
little pieces of bright green masking tape on the window.

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JoeAltmaier
I wonder how subtle the lines could be, and still work? Could a stripey near-
invisible 'shadow line' be silkscreened on the glass before its installed?

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pvaldes
Looks like a valid and clever solution for a problem. I wonder how this will
stand wind, or if will create noise hitting against windows.

~~~
wlkr
I recall a short video [0] gaining traction on this topic a while back with
the simple solution of drawing the lines on windows with a marker pen.

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC9xQkUtQ98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC9xQkUtQ98)

~~~
RenRav
That's the video! I instantly thought of that when I saw the picture in the
article. Thanks, I wasn't able to find it.

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smnrchrds
Related-ish Planet Money episode:

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/28/540084544/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/28/540084544/episode-786-rest-
of-the-story-2017-vol-1)

Go to 16:40 for the related part.

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neilobremski
I need a zen curtain on the front of my phone, my television, my laptop screen
... heck I need some zen everywhere

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noodlesUK
There was a particularly invisible glass wall in a parking lot near me. I
guess enough people walked into it that they did the low-tech human version of
this by sellotaping a piece of paper onto it that simply said “window”... I
can’t imagine birds understanding that, but it was hilarious to see.

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CobrastanJorji
It's interesting how one community sees the rainbow lorikeet as an invasive
pest that needs to be eliminated and another community is carefully
redesigning buildings to save the poor rainbow lorikeets.

~~~
foobar1962
All native wildlife in Australia is protected -- cute cuddly and deadly
poisonous animals equally.

Lizards, spiders and insects found in a home are often caught and released
outside in the garden rather than killed (especially the huge huntsman spiders
we get here which are harmless to humans). I'll even catch and release
cockroaches rather than kill them.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
Yes, but they're not native to Western Australia. They were introduced by
accident in the 1960s.

They were also accidentally introduced to New Zealand in the 1990s by some
idiot in North Shore who released large numbers of captive ones.

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aitchnyu
I've seen a church in Kerala, India use plastic chain curtains over their
doors to prevent birds flying inside. Seems they are commonly used for this
purpose.

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mark_l_watson
Twenty years ago a friend of mine sold something similar for houses. We live
in the mountains, lots of birds, lots of bird-window collisions.

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dorkwood
Why is it called a 'Zen curtain'?

~~~
mikestew
See related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21386788](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21386788)

Saving you a click: because "Zen" is a marketing term meaning "calm or
peaceful". Birds not slamming into glass is considered to be peaceful. Not be
confused with the "Zen" of Zen Buddhism, where it doesn't mean that at all.

~~~
foobar1962
> Not be confused with the "Zen" of Zen Buddhism...

Or motorcycle maintenance.

~~~
jascii
Many consider "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" a modern-day
Buddhist parable though the author states it specifically not to be..

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HNLurker2
Zen it's all about being in concordance with nature

