What can you do to help raptors?

Windows:

Birds are at risk from window strikes all year, but especially during migration and fledging season.

You can …

• Install screens to minimize impact, and for new windows, ask for bird-safe glass.
• Close blinds or curtains.
• Avoid night lighting — to reduce glare, extinguish outdoor lighting at night, or add down-shields, install motion sensors, remove floodlights and atrium lights, avoid inside lights on high floors.
• Create a pattern across the window to break up the reflection.
• Use window decals such as these 6-inch-by-6-inch removable decals from Bird’s Eye View.
• Make or buy outdoor string curtains, such as at Acopian BirdSavers.
• Use a Posca paint pen to draw fine vertical (removable) lines on windows.
• Patti Loesche, Urban Raptor Conservancy president, recommends hanging vinyl rope at intervals from a bamboo rod.

Related

Seattle is home to many raptors. These volunteers protect them from the dangers of city living

Rodents:

Attempts to control rats with rodenticide, particularly anticoagulants called SGARs, which kill the birds (or foxes, cats or dogs) who eat rodents, can deal a fatal blow to raptors.

You can …

• Avoid rat poison in favor of nontoxic controls. Use mechanical (snap) traps instead of chemical ones. If you see a bait box with an exit hole, it probably contains poison.
• Protect entry points to your home like eaves, crawl spaces and ventilation pipes with hard-to-chew hardware cloth or steel wool.
• Clear out vegetation along the side of your house; remove invasive ivy which provides cover.
• Use seed cakes instead of loose seed to feed birds. Keep pet food inside.
• Cover and secure trash and compost bins well. Don’t add meat or fat to compost. Dispose of pet waste in the garbage.