Abstract
AbstractBird‐window collisions have been estimated to be among the most important sources of bird death. Despite increasing knowledge in Latin America, our understanding of this phenomenon is still incipient, with research performed in Mexico limited to a handful of studies. Here, we present the results of a citizen science effort focused on bird‐window collisions at seven buildings in the university campus of the National School of Higher Studies (ENES) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, located in the city of León (central Mexico). Our main goal was to describe seasonal patterns of bird‐window collisions and their relationship with building traits (i.e., building height, window area) through citizen science monitoring strategies. Our results showed that collisions were higher in two of the seven studied buildings, with two bird species recording almost half of the total collisions: Clay‐colored Sparrow (Spizella pallida) and Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea). Seasonally, April was the only month to differ from the rest of the studied months, showing significantly higher rate of bird‐window collision. Regarding building traits, only building height was related to the number of recorded bird‐window collisions. In sum, our study provides findings from an understudied area, showing the value of citizen science approaches to generate knowledge on a deadly phenomenon. Notably, besides the potential drawbacks and importance of generating this kind of information, our project raised awareness on the topic across the entire campus community, from the students and academics to the administration, highlighting the potential for social impact with these kinds of projects.
Highlights
Since the Industrial Revolution, human activities have increasingly affected our planet in such a way that scientists have identified them as a global geological and morphological force (Crutzen, 2016; Steffen, Crutzen, & McNeill, 2007)
We recorded a total of 69 lethal collisions of 24 species resulting of bird-window collisions at the ENES-UNAM León campus through 1 year (Table 2)
Species for which we recorded more than one casualty are: mourning dove (Zenaida macroura), lazuli bunting (Passerina amoena), Inca dove (Columbina inca), broad-billed hummingbird (Cynanthus latirostris), American kestrel (Falco sparverius), barn swallow (Hirundo rustica), Lincoln's sparrow
Summary
Since the Industrial Revolution, human activities have increasingly affected our planet in such a way that scientists have identified them as a global geological and morphological force (Crutzen, 2016; Steffen, Crutzen, & McNeill, 2007). This new human-driven geological period, the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002; Laurance, 2019), has experienced a unique moment when the majority of the global human population passed from being nonurban to urban at the beginning of the 21st century (Grimm et al, 2008). Avian species that interact with cities and towns, including those that use urban vegetation for roosting only or those that dwell in large urban greenspaces (see Blair, 1996; Fischer et al, 2015 for a categorization of responses to urbanization), are subject to a number of hazards that are different in nature and intensity when contrasted with those of nonurban systems (Santiago-Alarcon & Delgado-V, 2017)
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