There was a Gray Catbird at the south entrance today.
9–10 October 2019 – no casualties
8 October 2019 – Lincoln’s Sparrow
7 October 2019 – Two House Wrens and still learning new things
6 October 2019 – no casualties
4 October 2019 – no casualties
3 October 2019 – Common Yellowthroat
30 September–2 October
No casualties.
29 September 2019 – Lincoln’s Sparrow
27 September 2019 – Another House Wren and Ruby-throated Hummingbird
25 and 26 September 2019 – no casualties
24 September 2019 – Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Nashville Warbler; plus bonus birds
Birds on the move captured on Nexrad radar tell an important story on the evening of Sep. 23 to the morning of Sep. 24. First, watch migration blow up after local sunrise in the eastern US, and progress to the west.
As the night wore on, storms began to flare up in Oklahoma. Here in Stillwater those storms hit between 1:30 and 2:00 am on Sep. 24. As the storms expand, migration stalls: Birds put down to avoid the storms and for people on the ground, that’s a fallout.
Was there evidence of this fallout on the ground?
Well, there was a bonus Canada Warbler in that troublesome northeastern alcove of the Food and Agricultural Products Center. (This was in addition to a Mourning Warbler and a Wilson’s Warbler I found there on Sep. 21.)
There was a big flight of Nashville Warbler in Stillwater, too. Twelve were reported from Couch Park. I found one in the southwestern alcove and a Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the northeastern alcove.
23 September 2019 – House Wren and Ruby-throated Hummingbird
22 September 2019 – no casualties
19–20 September 2019 – no casualties
18 September 2019 – Mourning Warbler
16–17 September 2019 – no casualties
15 September 2019 – Prothonotary Warbler
14 September 2019 – two Yellow Warblers
9–13 September 2019 – no casualties
8 September 2019 – Ruby-throated Hummingbird
The 40th casualty of 2019 indicates another unusually deadly year at the Noble Research Center on the campus of Oklahoma State University here in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. The fact that we’ve hit that benchmark in early September is especially disheartening. This hummingbird at the main north entrance earned the sad distinction of being number 40.
6 September 2019 – Mourning Warbler
5 September 2019 – no casualties
4 September 2019 – Ruby-throated Hummingbird
3 September 2019 – no casualties
2 September 2019 – no casualties
1 September 2019 – Ruby-throated Hummingbird and trapped Painted Bunting
31 August 2019 – no casualties
30 August 2019 – Mourning Warbler
29 August 2019 – Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Yellow Warbler, and Wilson’s Warbler
28 August 2019 – no casualties
27 August 2019 – Mourning Dove
26 August 2019 – no casualties
25 August 2019 – Yellow Warbler
23 August 2019 – Indigo Bunting and Mourning Warbler
As storms rolled through overnight, I assumed I might find a casualty this morning. There were two: a completely rain-soaked female Indigo Bunting in the southwestern alcove and a completely dry and fluffy Mourning Warbler at the south entrance under the rain protection provided by the portico’s overhanging roof. The latter was an AHY male with fat = 3.
19–22 August 2019 – no casualties
18 August 2019 – Painted Bunting
16 August 2019 – no casualties
15 August 2019 – Painted Bunting
13 August 2019 – Ruby-throated Hummingbird
10–12 August 2019 – no casualties
1–8 August 2019 – no casualties
August 2009–July 2019: Ten Year Milestone
Ahead of the official official ten-year anniversary of window collision monitoring at the Noble Research Center on August 20th, here’s a recap of my very first post from 7 September, 2009.
Those were heady days, indeed.
Here are some basic things I’ve observed and learned, August 2009–July 2019.
With some occasional help when I’ve been out of town, we surveyed the perimeter of the Noble Research Center for window-collided birds 2,141 times. I’ve generally run surveys every day (usually within about two hours of sunrise) during heavy migration periods in autumn and spring, scaling back to more like weekly surveys during the dead of winter.
Including 4 unidentified passerine remains, at least 414 individuals of 67 species died in window collisions at the Noble Research Center.
The most frequently encountered casualties were:
- Lincoln’s Sparrow 51
- Ruby-throated Hummingbird 36
- Painted Bunting 26
- Indigo Bunting 23
- Grasshopper Sparrow 20
- Clay-colored Sparrow 18
- Mourning Dove 17
- Nashville Warbler 16
- Mourning Warbler 15
Tenth is a four-way tie with 11 casualties each for Common Yellowthroat, Orange-crowned Warbler, Song Sparrow, and Yellow Warbler.
The spatial distribution of those casualties looks a bit like this:

Collision casualties at the Noble Research Center, Stillwater, OK, 2017
Window treatments applied to selected panes in 2016 have, evidently, not contributed to a decline in collisions.
I plan to continue my monitoring at the NRC for as long as I can, and in the next 10 years hope to appreciably reduce the mortality here.