FEATURES STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT
April 17, 2026 415
Toronto is a world leader in bird-friendly design
Throughout April, UrbanToronto is offering a special State of Environment editorial series to examine critical sustainability issues in our region.
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Those of us who live in Toronto can forget it as part of nature. Surrounded by steel, glass, and concrete, especially in the downtown area, Toronto can actually seem quite removed from nature. But the stretches of canyon parks that cut through the urban fabric and the waves that lap our southern shores, remind us that we live together with our plant and animal friends and are much closer to each other than we think. When animals invade our concrete jungles, the focus is usually on our beloved (and equally maligned) raccoons, perhaps also on the pesky squirrels or the occasional fox or coyote, but there is a far more ubiquitous animal that is often underestimated: birds.
Despite its size and urbanity, Toronto can actually be a bird watcher’s paradise, as anyone who visits Tommy Thompson Park can attest. Our corner of the Great Lakes lies at the confluence of two major migratory bird routes, the Atlantic and the Mississippi, where millions of birds fly through our skies each spring and fall on their way from the Arctic North to South America and back.
Migratory bird trails in North and South America, image courtesy of the City of Toronto.
But for many, their journey ends on the cold, hard concrete of our city streets. It is estimated that about a million birds die each year from collisions with buildings in Toronto alone, and across Canada, about 25 million die each year from balloons. Despite the magnitude of the problem, bird collisions can be largely avoided and resolved through simple design measures in our buildings that would save the lives of millions of birds.
In 2007, the City of Toronto partnered with local charity FLAP Canada to introduce the Bird-Friendly Design Guidelines, widely considered to be the first of their kind in the world. Since then, the groundbreaking document has been strengthened and serves as a precedent for bird-friendly design worldwide. Here at home, it has been included in the Toronto Green Standard as a mandatory requirement for new development compliance. The guidelines describe design features that are dangerous to birds and suggest design measures, façade treatments and operational protocols that reduce the risk of bird collisions.
Cormorants in Tommy Thompson Park, image by Carlos Osorio.
The two biggest problems leading to bird collisions are nighttime lighting and the use of glass as a building material, which as we all know has been used extensively over the past two decades in the many towers that have sprung up all over the city. The intense lighting conditions in urban environments are extremely confusing for migratory birds. Many species of birds have evolved to travel at night because it gives them greater protection from predators and requires them to use less energy in cooler temperatures. They often use natural clues such as the moon and stars to navigate, but light pollution from dense urban environments obscures these important landmarks and causes disorientation. They are often trapped in the city and cannot get out, which is called “fatal attraction to light.”
Glass is particularly dangerous for birds in flight. Unlike humans, birds cannot perceive clear glass as a solid surface and cannot recognize reflections in the glass as mere images, but instead mistake them for real objects. Therefore, collisions often occur when birds attempt to seek shelter or reach habitat visible through or reflected in a glass wall, often resulting in death.
Dead birds collected by FLAP Canada, displayed at the ROM in March 2014, image by Zachary Finkelstein.
Reducing bird collisions can start with the massing and design of the building itself. Certain “flight conditions” are particularly dangerous for birds and can be avoided, such as: B. glazed building corners; Rooms with glazing on parallel walls so that you can see outside through the room itself; glazed courtyards or atriums where birds can be trapped; and glazed balcony or roof terrace railings. Attached building elements such as overhangs, awnings, sun protection or external screens can help reduce reflections and the transparency of building facades, but alone are often not enough to completely prevent collisions. Even a simple design decision to use less glass and more solid cladding will help reduce collisions, in addition to the many other environmental benefits that less glazing brings.
Picasso Condos uses less glazing and the glass features a bird-friendly frit, image by forum contributor AHK.
When using glazing, there are two approaches to treating the glass itself to avoid excessive bird collisions. Have you ever wondered what those evenly spaced white dots are that appear on so many buildings throughout the city? This is a ceramic frit that is applied to the glass and its sole purpose is to reduce bird collisions and it actually proves to be effective. Applying an opaque pattern to the glass is a common method of incorporating bird-friendly design because it allows the bird to perceive the surface as solid, but still allows it to be transparent to the building’s users. Typically treatments are carried out using either frits, films or acid etching and the pattern must have a maximum distance of 50 mm (2 inches) between visual markings.
The second approach is to change the type of glass used in the building. Opaque, frosted or translucent glass, as well as glass blocks, are effective at deterring bird collisions because they act more like a solid surface to them. Another option is to use UV glass, which is any type of glass that blocks or reflects ultraviolet rays. Birds are able to detect light rays in the UV spectrum, so to them the glass appears solid, while to humans it would still be completely transparent. Glass that reflects UV rays also greatly helps reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint of buildings.
Bird-friendly patterns on glass at the University of Toronto, image by Donglin Que.
So which buildings need to be designed to be bird-friendly? In Toronto, it is currently mandatory for all residential buildings four or more stories high; all non-residential buildings; and all buildings located in a high-risk area, generally defined as properties adjacent to natural areas, parks, and other open spaces, as designated in the Official Plan.
If bird-friendly design is required, it is not necessary to treat the glass throughout the building in the manner described above. For any building that requires bird-friendly design, the following areas must be treated with glass:
- At least 85% of all external glazing within 16 meters of the building above grade;
- All balcony railings;
- The first 4 meters of external glazing over any roof vegetation, with a 2.5 meter high buffer on either side;
- All transit conditions, e.g. E.g. clear glass corners or parallel glass walls; And
- Any glass on elevations facing a high risk area.
The glass facade of the Sheldon & Tracy Levy Student Learning Center at TMU, image courtesy of Snøhetta.
The result was countless glass frit designs across the city, many of which wouldn’t even be recognizable as bird-friendly designs. The opaque pattern on the glass does not have to be dots, it can be any pattern the architect or owner desires. Some great examples would be TMU’s Sheldon and Tracy Levy Student Learning Center (above), whose iconic glass pattern not only helps prevent bird collisions and reduce solar heat gain, but also defines the building’s architectural expression, and the Toronto Pan Am Sports Center (below), whose bird-friendly “dots” are shaped like figures playing various sports and activities.
Glass frit with sporting figures at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, image courtesy of the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre.
In addition to these bird-friendly design options, the Toronto Green Standard also requires that all outdoor lighting be Dark Sky compliant, meaning lights are directed downward and have a warmer light temperature to reduce light pollution. The standards also stipulate that roof lighting and exterior facade lighting must be switched off between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Glass frit with sporting figures at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, image by Karen Jiang
So next time you’re walking the streets of Toronto, look out for bird-friendly design features in newer buildings – they’re much more common than you might think! And in spring and fall, it’s worth taking a trip to Tommy Thompson Park or one of the many nature reserves and natural areas in the GTA to watch these migratory birds on their way. Despite its dense urban space, Toronto proudly leads the way in protecting our flying feathered friends.
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