It’s a bird! It’s a pane!

Fewer birds are flying into windows at the Omaha Public Power District’s downtown headquarters after the utility covered more than two dozen glass panes with a thin film that lessens reflection.

From the inside, the adhesive-backed sheets of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, look like wire-mesh window screens.

From the outside, the film slightly darkens windows and is just “enough to keep them from looking like a mirror,” said Jeff Hanson, a spokesman for OPPD.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told the utility last fall that a number of bird strikes had occurred at the headquarters, particularly on the northwest side, Hanson said. The birds, possibly attracted to reflections of nearby trees, flew straight into the large, ground-floor windows, he said.

Bird strikes and bird droppings have challenged building owners for years.

Douglas County officials installed netting along upper floors of the downtown courthouse building in 1998 to keep birds off window ledges. The Nebraska Medical Center draped temporary coverings over the glass of a skywalk near 44th and Farnam Streets to protect purple martins that had roosted in about a dozen nearby trees.

Under the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918, businesses can be fined up to $15,000 per bird if companies know birds fly into their buildings but do nothing to protect them, said Robert Harms, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Grand Island, Neb.

Rather than fining businesses, however, officials prefer to work with them, providing technical and other assistance, Harms said.

Over the last few years, Fish and Wildlife officials have realized that downtown Omaha has a problem with migratory birds striking buildings as they follow the Missouri River in the spring and fall, Harms said. Wildlife officials have discussed the problem with several businesses and government officials, including those at the Qwest Center Omaha, Harms said.

The Qwest Center looked into but rejected the idea of using ultrasonic waves to deter birds, said Roger Dixon, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, which oversees the facility.

OPPD’s solution would cost up to $500,000 if applied to the 63,000 square feet of windows that front the Qwest Center, Dixon said.

Instead, Qwest officials have begun applying a decal of leaves to the inside of windows, he said. The method’s effectiveness will be assessed during the migratory season.

If applied to all necessary windows, the decals could cost up to $15,000, he said.

“We are trying to do something.”

Harms said OPPD’s nonreflective window coverings could help protect birds like common snipes, which are migratory wetland birds; indigo buntings, migratory birds that like the forest edge; as well as field sparrows and small sandpipers.

Keeping track of bird kills is an inexact science, but they clearly have dropped since CollidEscape was installed in May, Hanson said.

Omaha bird enthusiast Jim Ducey tracks bird deaths downtown. According to information on his blog, Wildbirds Broadcasting, there has been a noticeable decrease in bird strikes where the window covering was installed, from several in 2008 to two or three this year.

No technique will be 100 percent effective, Harms said.

“There are so many birds it is hard to totally eliminate the problem, but we can minimize it,” he said.

OPPD officials considered netting for their windows but decided it wasn’t practical at ground level. They looked for other products that had some proven success and the search led them to CollidEscape, made by Large Format Digital of Edgerton, Wis.

Mary Yost, Large Format’s vice president of operations, said CollidEscape is an offshoot of vinyl wrap advertising the company offers for use on windows, cars, buses and trucks, billboards and walls. Color can be applied to the film, creating vivid advertisements for everything from insurance agencies to radio stations, zoos and retail stores.

Development of the product as a bird protection device began about five years ago, after company officials saw a magazine article about a Canadian advocacy group, FLAP or Fatal Light Awareness Program, touting a similar PVC window treatment as a measure to prevent bird strikes, Yost said. A year later, the company began selling its product for that use, Yost said.

Now a portion of each sale of CollidEscape goes to FLAP, company officials said.

Many homeowners, nature preserves and office building owners have purchased the window treatment, Yost said, and several resorts in Colombia, South America, have purchased the product to protect exotic birds.

The window treatment costs about $3 a square foot in white, or it can be tinted to match a building’s exterior or decorated in other colors for about $5 a square foot, Yost said.

Large Format also works with businesses to make the cost feasible, she said.

Hanson said OPPD paid about $8,500 to have 36 window panes covered with the tinted material. Utility officials might have several more windows done for about $3,400 on the north side of the building, Hanson said.

The window treatment is expected to last three or four years, Hanson said.

Contact the writer:

444-1117, joe.ruff@owh.com

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