From the CBC: Ottawa boy’s invisible invention warns birds about deadly windows.
Eighth grader Charlie Sobcov wants to stop birds from dying in collisions with windows, but he doesn’t want to ruin anybody’s view.
For his latest school science fair project he has invented painted, plastic decals that can be placed — discreetly — right in the middle of a window pane.
"This paint is a colour that birds can see but humans can’t," he said Wednesday on CBC Radio’s All in a Day. "It’s like putting a big stop sign in the middle of the window."
The colour is ultraviolet, beyond the range of colours visible to humans. That means the "stop sign" lets birds know the window is solid, but is nearly invisible to humans. [continue].
That is one of the coolest things I think I have ever heard. Funny that the colour spectrum that birds can see has been known for quite sometime but no one has ever come up with the idea before, until now.
Wow, that’s great! It’s a much needed invention.
Outstanding! Leave it to a bright kid to grasp the obvious when the adults were too busy being clever and impressing each other with their wit and erudition (sorry–feeling curmudgeonly today).
We’ve been buying this item for years…
http://windowalert.com/
Not sure why CBC did not research this story a little better???
Good for the kid to do all the work and study up though!
Hmm… Could this be expanded with some sort of UV-reflecting paint (like the ink for blacklight posters) for those pesky windmill power plants?
And thank you Jean, for the WindowAlert information. I do not have a bird-impact problem myself, but I hope to remember this next time a newspaper publishes a story about a high-rise/skyscraper unable to find a solution…