For Kathy Mortimer, one thing certainly did lead to another.

When the Kitchener resident started working from home during the pandemic, she joined Birds Canada’s Feeder Watch program. That turned out to be a gateway to the greater bird world. She started following bird-related organizations on social media.

Then she learned that overall bird populations in North America have declined by almost 30 per cent in the last 50 years — that’s nearly three billion birds gone and includes both threatened and common species.

She learned the main threats include outdoor cats, window collisions and loss of habitat and food sources.

She decided to try connecting with companies representing large buildings with plenty of windows in the area and ask them to make adjustments to become more bird-friendly, and she’s starting to make progress.

“I wanted to focus on something positive, right? Accomplish something to feel good about doing it that’s not turning a blind eye,” Mortimer said.

“You contact someone, you try and find out who is the person who makes the decision about this, and you let them know, like, ‘did you know this is going on?’”

Mortimer uses the Bird Safe assessment tool from Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) Canada to estimate how dangerous buildings in the city can be for birds.

She found that the building at 345 King St. W. in Kitchener, the new home of Gowling WLG, an international law firm, can be particularly dangerous for birds. The LEED-certified, six-storey office building is virtually covered in windows.

For a week in the spring and again in the fall during migration periods, Mortimer took a walk around the building.

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