Fatal Death of a Bird from a Crash Against Glass Window

We were surfing on the web facing Murchison glass windows when we heard a thud and something fell down. My first reaction was someone (one of my friends) threw a ball or some soft material at us just as a prank. But when we got up and saw, it was a bird that had crashed against the window.

I had not seen a bird crash against the window with my own eyes. We got out to see if we can help the bird. I went near and tried to move the bird but saw that it had broken its neck. A viscous liquid was oozing out, it was not blood. We realized the bird had broken its neck pretty bad and there was no way we could help it. If we moved its neck, it would have popped open. The bird crashed at the glass window with a significant amount of force. I had not realized that reaction force against a flying bird could be so large. The crash had made a pretty loud sound. Sadly, the bird died in less than 5 minutes from its initial crash. The damage done was irreparable.

In the image below, if you see closely you can see the liquid oozing out of the bird's neck.

A Bird after crashing against the glass window. Photo by: Digital Subway

From the image below, you can estimate the reaction force the bird must have felt.  Liquid oozed out immediately.

Glass window after a bird crash. Photo by: Digital Subway

After this incident, Sawan and I, two fellow engineers realized that the research to prevent birds from crashing against glass windows is very necessary. More birds die annually from crashing against glass windows than from flying planes or rotating wind turbines. Fortunately, a team of engineers including Brian Williams led by Dr. Jack Leifer is working this summer at Trinity University to prevent flying birds from crashing against glass windows. From my understanding, a mechanism is set up to detect flying birds which activates another system that repels them by some sort of sound unpleasant to birds or some other mechanism that I am unaware of.

I feel sorry for the bird. Wish there was more I could have done.

Bird after crash against Glass Window. Photo by: Digital Subway