About Hunter Hill’s recent up-close-and-personal encounter with a cedar waxwing (The Way Out Here, September 11-17): I am loath to contradict his mother. But contrary to her thesis, the bird was far more likely to have crashed into a window than simply be taking a nap in Hunter’s driveway.

No uninjured bird would allow someone to just pick them up — they’d startle and fly away first.

I speak from long experience. In 1997, I started Project Safe Flight, a volunteer effort to document bird collisions at buildings in New York City. That first year, working alone, I found more than 430 dead and injured birds at the base of the buildings in the World Trade and World Financial Center complexes.

These were not pigeons and house sparrows. They were tiny gems of field and forest: warblers, tanagers, kinglets — and, yes, cedar waxwings, among many others — all migrating between their wintering and breeding grounds. More than 200 different species of birds occur in New York’s Central Park every year.

I suggest that Mr. Hill stand at the spot where he found the waxwing and look at his house at different times of day. Do any windows reflect trees or open sky? Does one show a houseplant inside? Or does one pair with another window on the opposite side of the house, creating an apparent tunnel to habitat beyond?

All these conditions can trick birds into thinking they can safely fly toward a solid barrier. Unable to perceive glass, birds don’t know to avoid it and can get stunned, concussed or worse by colliding with windows.

Researchers estimate that every year, more than one billion birds die from crashing into windows and glass-clad buildings in the U.S. alone. And populations of most bird species are declining at an alarming rate.

You can take steps to mitigate the windows in your home to prevent bird collisions. Learn how at:

https://www.nycbirdalliance.org/take-action/make-nyc-bird-friendly/make-your-windows-bird-friendly

https://abcbirds.org/solutions/prevent-home-collisions/

https://www.audubon.org/news/simple-solutions-prevent-collisions

Rebekah Creshkoff

Callicoon, NY