Some startling numbers…if taken at face value, but…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22395664
Regards, Clive. ===============================
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So do windows: places like Chicago and Toronto have lots of glass hi-rise and they are on direct migration routes for millions of new world birds of many species:
The extract below comes from http://mag.audubon.org/articles/birds/when-birds-and-glass-collide but there are other articles as well.
“*Bird strikes occur year-round* and can happen at virtually any type of building—commercial, educational, or residential. But when it comes to cities that, like Chicago, lie on avian flyways, the problem is especially evident during migration season. In the evening, bright lighting on skyscrapers can lure birds in search of navigational cues typically afforded by the moon and stars. The effect is most pronounced on evenings of bad weather, when the cloud cover is low and birds are forced to fly at lower altitudes. Confused by the artificial light beams, some migrants crash into the buildings’ facades.
Most migrants, however, will settle into the city unscathed until morning, only to face a more menacing danger: glass. “It’s not, in my view, beacons that are attracting these animals to their deaths on the tops of the buildings,” says Klem, who is based at the Acopian Center for Ornithology in the Department of Biology at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “It’s a secondary effect that gets them, and that’s the glass on the ground.”
Klem estimates that at least a billion birds—roughly five percent of the bird population after breeding season—die annually across the United States by colliding with windows, making it the second-largest manmade threat to birds after habitat loss. When confronted with a pane, most migratory species are vulnerable, because birds don’t perceive glass as a barrier. ”
More than are killed by Apple devices (sorry!)
It does put the windfarm debate into some sort of perspective, although of course they tend to cause problems on migratory routes,
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