Brooke Zelcer 
On Wednesday, March 11th, the Jersey City Council unanimously passed a bird-friendly buildings ordinance, which will help make new structures safer for the millions of birds that migrate through, or live within, Jersey City each year. The measure requires new construction to incorporate bird-safe design features to reduce the number of birds that collide with reflective windows throughout the year. Read on for more about bird strikes and a local mitigation effort taking place in Hoboken.
Bird Strikes in Hoboken
Meanwhile, in nearby Hoboken, a teenager has helped solve a long-standing problem at a pavilion in the Northwest Resiliency Park, where migrating birds were colliding with the building’s large glass windows.
“We began noticing birds that had struck our windows and died near the storefront,” said Luca Infantino, owner of Alessio’s, the popular restaurant occupying the pavilion’s space.
“Over time, and depending on the season, it became clear that this wasn’t an isolated issue and there was a recurring and increasing pattern of bird strikes,” Luca said. The restaurant, located in Hoboken’s Northwest Resiliency Park, opened in 2024 and is surrounded by an assortment of native plants, shrubs, and trees intended to promote ecological sustainability.
Image courtesy of Brooke Zelcer. Otys holds a Common Yellowthroat he found after a window strike at Stevens University in Hoboken. Though this and other birds occasionally survive collisions, studies show that many sustain injuries that lead to fatality.
“Our store is located in one of the most beautiful parks in Hoboken, surrounded by nature and wildlife. Seeing so many different bird species harmed by our windows was heartbreaking. We felt a responsibility to find a solution and prevent further deaths,” Luca said.
More than 1 billion birds die each year from collisions with windows, according to the American Bird Conservancy. Unsuspecting birds strike window panes because they either reflect the surrounding environment or because the birds attempt to pass from one area to another without seeing the glass, which creates an invisible barrier.
Luca reached out to Hoboken teenager Otys Train after he saw a post online about Otys’s Youth Climate Action Project, which was offered by The City of Hoboken in conjunction with Bloomberg Philanthropies. The initiative is designed to encourage younger citizens to address climate change and support community resilience.
Local Collaboration
Otys’s first project sought to raise public awareness about window strikes. “I installed window decals all over town. At City Hall, Stevens University, Sweet, the bakery by Church Square Park, and some other restaurants and businesses,” said Otys. “I wanted to educate people about the problem and inspire others to take action and save birds.”
He installed a mix of long-term and short-term solutions designed to make the problem and its fixes more visible to the city’s residents. Besides window decals, he installed informational posters that included QR codes, which people could scan in order to learn strategies they could use to prevent or cut down on window strikes.
The campaign worked: Luca heard about the project, and when he reached out to share that birds were dying from his windows, the young environmentalist agreed to help. Data collection was the first step.
Image courtesy of Brooke Zelcer. Otys Train in front of one of the windows at Alessio’s protected by Feather Friendly markers.
“It’s important to find trends and patterns so that you can understand which areas are the most problematic,” said Otys, who directed the restaurant’s employees to text him photos and information about the birds so he could input them to DBird.org, a database used to map collision hotspots. In addition to noting the species, he recorded the date, time, and precise locations of the strikes. After one year and two migratory seasons, Otys determined that the eatery wasn’t the sole culprit of the problem in the park. The city’s event space, which lies adjacent to the restaurant, was also killing an inordinate number of birds.
“The windows were in the middle of a wonderful habitat that was pulling in a lot of species. Birds forage early in the morning, and as the sun comes up, the light reflects off the windows and creates the illusion of trees and shrubs,” Otys said.
Finding a Solution
Otys’s mentor, Noelle Thurlow of Resilience Paddle Sports and Our Tern, two organizations working to support citizen science and ecological stewardship in the Mile Square City, advised him as he prepared to apply for the grant. She helped him research solutions, design a budget, and communicate with the City of Hoboken and Feather Friendly, an industry leader when it comes to preventing window collisions. In the end, Otys and Luca opted for white markers, otherwise known as dots, spaced two inches apart.
Birds can see the white dots that adhere to the outside of the windows that diners inside barely notice. Research has shown that spacing the dots two inches apart is the most effective method for protecting birds, including hummingbirds, the smallest avian family.
Earning a grant of $5,000 enabled Otys to address the problem areas on both structures in the park. Working with Jeremy Roche and Matt Mahoney of Resilience Paddle Sports, Otys learned how to properly install Feather Friendly’s material to the windows. The team met periodically over several weeks to clean the surfaces and properly apply the markers.
Image courtesy of Brooke Zelcer. A south-facing window at Alessio’s in Hoboken’s Northwest Park that has been treated with Feather Friendly Markers. Untreated, birds had been flying into the windows because of glare. Birds are able to see the white dots, and, as a result, fly around or over the building.
Though the deterrents have been up for just a few months, there has already been a 90% reduction in strikes.
“The improvement has been drastic. We rarely see birds hitting windows anymore,” said Luca, who is enthusiastic about his business’s addition. “Aesthetically, the dots are classy, minimal, and perfectly aligned with the store’s overall design.”
He also says that customers have responded positively to the material, especially once they understand their purpose. “They appreciate that we took action to solve this problem.”
As more people become aware of the threat that glass presents to birds, more signs of mitigation are popping up all over Hoboken. After learning about persistent bird-strike problems on its campus, for instance, Stevens University added bird-safe treatments to its Babbio Center.
Our Tern has also held a series of events with architecture firms and developers to educate them about the threat of windows, to introduce them to solutions, and to provide them with answers to questions they might have.
Frank Minervini, who hosted one of these “lunch and learns” at his MVMK Architecture and Design office, was enthusiastic. “We’ve become more aware of how building façades affect the surrounding environment, particularly migratory wildlife. As consideration of environmental impacts, regulations, and available materials has evolved, incorporating safer glazing strategies has become a natural part of our design approach,” he said.
Otys’s educational campaign has also inspired residents to get into the act of protecting Hoboken’s avian neighbors.
Tom Yezerski, a local artist, explained his rationale for addressing a problem on his home’s windows: “We have an old oak tree behind our building that encourages a lot of visitors. We’ve seen three different kinds of woodpeckers, several hawks and even a Barn owl. We just think of the markers as part of being good hosts for their stop along the Atlantic flyway.
Jersey City Birds founder and local advocate, Lorraine Freeney, said these steps are all signs “that the communities are coming together to send a message about the kind of cities we all want to live in. You don’t have to be a birder to want responsible, environmentally-conscious development,” she said. “Bird-friendly cities are better for people as well as for wildlife.”
When asked what she hopes will happen next, Lorraine said, “our goal is that more communities will follow suit so that we can create a safe corridor for wildlife here in New Jersey, and safer skies for our birds. We’re here to support and share what we’ve learned, and we’re learning from others, too. The work Otys is doing in Hoboken is so important and inspiring as we begin retrofitting efforts in Jersey City.”
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