I recently read the book “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman. I found it to be simultaneously inspiring, depressing, heart-wrenching and wondrous. I highly recommend reading it. It really will change the way you look at the world.

Since reading it, I experience little pangs of sadness every time I see a squirrel scampering around on concrete or a bird pecking in the gutter for food. I get especially deflated when I see a bird, dead, on the ground in front of a tall building made mostly of glass and metal. It ruins my day, and this happens way too often; I’ve counted at least five dead birds in the past week alone (it probably doesn’t help that I live in Chicago, land of skyscrapers).

One sighting I found particularly poignant was in front of a Patagonia store, which ironically, sells lots of outdoor equipment and apparel. Within the course of the two blocks that the store spanned, there were two dead finch-type birds on the ground.

I went in and asked them to put up a sign or something in the window to ward off other potential bird-victims; I hope they honored this request. But in case they didn’t … Patagonia on North Clybourn Avenue in Chicago … this one’s for you!

I searched around online to find a free hawk graphic which can be posted in a window to deter birds from flying into it, but I didn’t find anything. So I decided to make one for anyone to use!

Here are some .PDFs of various sizes that can be downloaded and printed out on a sheet of paper. Post some today in your window and save a bird, or perhaps a whole family of birds!

• Black, 8.5 in x 11in
• White, 8.5 in x 11in
• Black, 11 in x 17 in
• White, 11 in x 17 in

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Design, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.