Rozy Bathrick

PhD Candidate, UMass Amherst
Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Research

Bird Safe UMass

Reflections on Collisions

Media and Outreach

CV
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Contact me here or email me:
rebathrick [at] umass.edu

All website photos are mine unless otherwise noted.

Bird Safe UMass

Bird Safe UMass with local US Fish & Wildlife Staff, celebrating the unveiling of Margaret Lepeshkin’s award-winning design on the UMass Studio Arts Building.

Scarlett Tanager at the Newman Center, 2024. Photo by Feipeng Huang.

Window decal installation was completed in 2026 on the highest risk buildings, along with fritted glass in the new campus buildings.

Fritted glass, incorporated during the construction phase in the Sustainable Engineering Building completed in 2026. Photo by Feipeng Huang.

We share our campus and the surrounding forest, fields, and wetlands with hundreds of species of bird. Every spring and fall, billions of birds stream overhead on their migrations north and south - and many stop at UMass Amherst or nearby to rest and refuel. The campus pond, Orchard Hill, and the landscaped areas between buildings provide habitat and food for these birds. Unfortunately, our large buildings with glass facades and lights left on at night also present danger - birds cannot see windows as easily as we can, and instead see the sky or habitat reflected in the glass. This leads to bird-window collisions, one of the leading causes of bird mortality in the world, with up to a billion birds a year killed in the United States alone.

In 2023, Natural Resource Conservation Lecturer Kelly Klingler and Masters student Monica Mestre began regular spring and fall monitoring of 23 buildings on UMass campus for bird-window collisions. As bird fatalities were documented and awareness of the issue grew, professors in the department began implementing collision surveys into their curriculum, and the Bird Safe UMass coalition of staff, graduate, and undergraduate students was created to monitor our campus for these collisions, collect data on the most dangerous buildings, and advocate the university for change. It had given hundreds of undergraduate students opportunities to participate in a local research program with tangible and measurable solutions, and to share the stories of these incredible birds.

In 2026, Bird Safe UMass was awarded a Massachusetts Biodiversity Grant to address the most dangerous buildings on campus with bird-safe window decals.

Also in 2026, I co-curated an interdisciplinary exhibit with Meg Vickery from the History of Art and Architecture Department: REFLECTIONS ON COLLISIONS, which was displayed in the Olver Design Building and also featured at the American Ornithological Society Conference.

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