This is Bert No.

Collisions with glass windows kill nearly one billion birds every year in the U.S.

And Chicago, an important passageway for millions migrating annually, sees a lot of these fatalities,

especially at its large convention center, McCormick Place.

This building has a kind of mortality that you don't see very often because it's right on the lake.

These birds don't have experience with glass. They're reflecting trees, they're reflecting

sky. Sometimes you can see right through a building and the birds fly into them.

Judy Pollock, president of Chicago Bird Alliance, says this problem has a solution.

Using bird safe glass or applying a tight grid of decals to existing windows.

If you don't have treated windows, you're just drawing birds in to their deaths.

The bad news, as most building owners are not interested in doing extra work to keep birds safe.

But when more than a thousand birds were killed in one day at McCormick Place, Judy says the scales

finally tipped. We had many, many meetings with them and they've done nothing.

But finally, they have treated their windows.

For years, Judy has been organizing with Bird Friendly Chicago for a citywide ordinance

that would mandate new construction and major renovations to use Bird Safe Glass.

She just hopes that it won't take another tragedy to get it passed.

Learn about Chicago's fight for a bird-friendly city on the new season of Bring Birds Back.

Available now in your favorite podcast app or at birdnote.org.

I'm Deja Perkins.