‘It was killing me’: Calgary naturalist stops bird collisions on his windows with ‘zen curtains’

From hi-rise buildings to bungalow homes, bird collisions with windows kill thousands of birds each year. A Calgary man is using bird curtains to solve the problem at his home.

Brian Keating’s property is a refuge for everything from beavers, ducks and mink, and now his home is bird-friendly too.

With all the bird traffic flowing through his Inglewood backyard, Keating’s heart sank every time he heard a collision with his house windows.

“I was getting bird strikes often and it was killing me. I couldn’t live with that. We had to do something,” said the Calgary naturalist.

Every year Keating would put up new silhouettes of falcons on his windows but that wasn’t working.

“You need a pattern that breaks up the size of the window reflection and that pattern has to be fairly close together, so the birds understand they can’t fly through it,” Keating said.

So he installed bird curtains.  Keating bought a roll of parachute cord that he attached to flashing at the top of his windows.  The bird curtains, also known as Acopian Bird Savers or Zen Wind Curtains, can be ordered online. There is also a do-it-yourself option.

“An hour and a half for each window covering,  we covered every single problem window on the house. They are essentially cords that hang in front and from the inside. Your brain eventually allows you to look right past them,” Keating said.

“They’re kind of mesmerizing when you watch them blow in the wind they’ve got a certain appeal when you’re inside. It reminds you that the world is an active world with air moving.”