Jackson Low was at his home in Bukit Batok Street 24, Singapore at about 1300 hours in June 2009 when he heard a loud thud. Then another. His curiousity roused, he went out to investigate. There, lying on the common corridor of level 5 of his apartment building was a White-crested Laughingthrush (Garrulax leucolophus). It had crashed onto the common corridor glass window twice before it landed on the floor. Fortunately it was only stunned. It soon recovered, called out repeatedly and flew to the floor above.
pete jones
It would be interesting to know whether there is a line of trees leading up to the crash site? Such may have guided the bird into the glass.
Maybe not, but nevertheless, tree lines running into glass buildings is often overlooked by architects / landscape architects during the design of new buildings. I have personally witnessed birds flying along such corridors and into buildings myself in London and the US, whereon they dropped to the pavement stunned!
I am not suggesting for a moment that we start removing trees! but rather that we should think about the design of wildlife corridors created sometimes…
YC
There are always trees lining roads in Singapore, whether leading to buildings or not. But at level 5, isn’t it a little too high? Our architects have yet to be sensitive to bird crash into buildings. Maybe because we have yet to do any surveys on dead birds found every morning in and around the central business district.