Now Available: Collision-curbing BirdTape

ABC BirdTape, an easy, affordable, and effective way to keep birds from hitting your windows, is now available thanks to a partnership of ABC and the company Feather Friendly®.

“We are excited to work with Feather Friendly® to make BirdTape available again,” says Chris Sheppard, ABC’s Glass Collisions Program Director. Created in 2012, the tape has not been available for several years. “It’s a great option for those looking for an inexpensive solution that goes up quickly and lasts a long time.”

“This is a fantastic opportunity to provide even more bird-collision deterrent options and educate

Desert-nesting Seabird, continued

from p.6 the public about this preventable conservation issue,” says Paul Groleau, Vice President of Feather Friendly®

Nesting in the inhospitable desert has been a way for these birds to raise their young with few predators, but it has also made conservation a challenge. For decades, while scientists couldn’t locate its colonies, the species was listed as “Data Deficient” on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List, a status that makes it harder to take conservation actions, including advocating for reserves.

ROC worked diligently to locate storm-petrel colonies, scouring miles of desert between 2013 and 2017.

Birds fly into windows because they do not perceive glass, and instead just see their habitat reflected back at them. This misperception has deadly results, killing hundreds of millions of birds each year. A popular option for individual homes is to put some kind of visual marker on windows to signal to birds that there is a solid barrier. ABC BirdTape, a white or light blue vinyl material easily applied to windows in long strips or in a pattern of squares, is perfect for this purpose. It lasts four years on average, is translucent enough to allow natural light through and not impact the view outside, and is easy to apply and customize.

ABC BirdTape is available online at featherfriendly.com/.

For other ideas and inspiration about how to reduce bird collisions, visit abcbirds.org/glass-collisions/.

ABC is grateful to the Leon Levy Foundation for its longtime support of our Glass Collisions program.

In 2019, its team released a paper announcing newly discovered Markham’s Storm-Petrel breeding site locations, including the large colony at Pampa Chaca. Resulting population estimates enabled scientists to change the species’ Red List status to “Near Threatened.” With financial support from ABC, ROC worked with the Chilean government to create the reserve.

ROC plans to continue working with ABC to implement monitoring and research programs at the reserve, as well as environmental education initiatives to engage the nearby community.

ABC is thankful for support of this project from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Antioquia Brushfinch: Another “Found” Bird Has a Reserve

More than 15 years after it was first described by scientists and five years after its rediscovery in the wild, the Antioquia Brushfinch has a private reserve to call its own. The 880-acre Antioquia Brushfinch Reserve north of Medellín, Colombia, was acquired by Corporación SalvaMontes Colombia and Corporación Neotropical Innovation, with support from ABC, Conserva Aves, and Rainforest Trust. It is the first reserve dedicated entirely to protecting this Critically Endangered species.

“The area where the brushfinch is located is highly productive, so there’s a lot of cattle ranching and agriculture in the surrounding area,” says ABC International Conservation Project Officer Eliana Fierro-Calderón. “The fact that we now have this stronghold for this species is perfect — it’s the right moment to create a reserve.”

Three searches supported by ABC and organized by local partner SalvaMontes helped pinpoint important areas for protection and enabled an accurate population estimate. To date, the species has been found in 25 locales, most clustered around a small area north of Medellín known as Altiplano Norte de Antioquia. The latest search estimated the species’ total population at 108 individuals. But habitat loss continues. “There are places where the species was found four years ago where they don’t exist anymore, so there has been this urgency of, ‘We need to do something,’” says Fierro-Calderón.

ABC has also supported outreach to local farmers to implement a voluntary conservation strategy that incentivises protecting brushfinch habitat. In 2021, ABC helped put 472 acres of land under conservation agreements with three landowners within the bird’s range.

The new reserve is a little larger than New York City’s Central Park and includes scrub habitat also inhabited by the Black-throated Flowerpiercer (an endemic subspecies), a potentially new antpitta species, and a number of imperiled native plants. Páramo, a kind of native grassland habitat, is also protected within the new reserve.

ABC also supported expansion of a nearby reserve run by partner Fundación Guanacas Bosques de Niebla that also has brushfinch habitat. This January, the Guanacas Reserve added 145 acres of land, bringing its total area to 2,058 acres.

ABC is grateful to The Bobolink Foundation, Stephen and Karen FerrellIngram, Hank Kaestner, the Reissing Family, The Weeden Foundation, and the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund for their generous support of our efforts to protect the Antioquia Brushfinch.