Construction is under way for the Anahim Lake Solar Project, set to be the largest off-grid solar farm in Canada. Located in Anahim Lake, B.C., the 3.8-megawatt solar installation will produce clean and renewable energy for the Ulkatcho First Nation, which currently relies on diesel for power. This project will reduce the need for diesel generation by about 64%, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality.

The Anahim Lake Solar Project is 100% Indigenous owned. In April 2024, BC Hydro signed its first-ever Community Electricity Purchase Agreement (CEPA) with Ulkatcho Energy Corporation (UEC), a member of Ulkatcho First Nation’s Ulkatcho Group of Companies (UGoC). Through this agreement, BC Hydro will purchase solar energy generated at Anahim Lake Solar Farm for the next 20 years.

“I am honoured to be involved in this great initiative,” says Chief Charlie Williams of the Ulkatcho First Nation. “Since my first meeting with BC Hydro five years ago, this project has come a long way and will have a very positive impact on our community. Through our Ulkatcho Group of Companies, we are giving our people a cleaner environment and preserving our lands through reducing greenhouse gas emissions on our Traditional Territory.”

The solar farm is being built on industrial land of an old sawmill site. To efficiently store and distribute the power it generates, BC Hydro is upgrading the Anahim Lake Station Microgrid. A new control system will transition operations from analog to digital, and batteries will store surplus energy generated during the day, ensuring reliable power supply after the sun goes down.

Chris O’Riley, President and CEO of BC Hydro, emphasizes the importance of collaborating with First Nations to deliver this leading-edge technology:

“Our collaboration with Ulkatcho Energy Corporation not only sets the foundation for future partnerships with First Nations across the province but also underscores BC Hydro’s commitment to supporting Indigenous-led clean energy initiatives — ensuring reliable, sustainable power for generations to come.”

The project also includes the construction of new access roads, a control and monitoring facility, site fire management, signage, and security. Construction is expected to be completed in October 2025.

The Court of Quebec has fined the Ville de Longueuil $30,000 for violating the Species at Risk Act, after destroying at least one Bobolink nest.

The Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) is a medium sized songbird in the blackbird family. Breeding males have distinct plumage: mostly black with a white back and yellow nape, they look like they are wearing backwards tuxedos. Females are buffy brown with dark streaking, plumage that helps them camouflage while nesting. Bobolinks nest on the ground in grasslands — habitat that is shrinking due to agriculture, overgrazing, and development.

“Although grasslands are important for our climate, as a carbon sink, and for biodiversity, they are among the most endangered and least formally protected ecosystems on the planet,” says Andrew Coughlan, Associate Director for Québec and the Atlantic at Birds Canada.

More than 25% of the world’s Bobolink population breeds in Canada, where the species is listed as Threatened under Schedule 1 of the Species at Risk Act. It is also protected by the Migratory Bird Convention Act.

“The species has suffered severe population declines since the early 1980s,” explains Coughlan, “And the declines have continued in recent years, particularly in Eastern Canada, where the bulk of the Canadian breeding population occurs.”

Although Bobolinks are typically associated with hayfields, they will nest anywhere with suitable grassy areas — which leaves them vulnerable to mowing. What happened in the Ville de Longueuil serves as a stark example: In July 2024, an individual reported witnessing city staff mow over a bobolink nesting site at Parc des Sorbiers. Enforcement officers subsequently launched an investigation, which determined that the Ville de Longueuil was indeed responsible for damaging or destroying at least one bobolink nest. The municipality pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Species at Risk Act.

Coughlan says the ruling highlights the fact that Bobolinks are protected by law in Canada, and there are real consequences if they are harmed.

“It also shows municipalities and landowners that citizens are concerned about and are willing to act as sentinels for local birds and nature,” he adds.

The Ville de Longueuil has indicated that it has already modified its maintenance routine for certain areas, delaying mowing until after July 15 — when the Bobolink is finished nesting. This is one of the measures recommended in the proposed Bobolink Recovery Strategy.

“This is a great step towards protecting this species during the nesting season,” says Coughlan.

Other measures could include training staff to identify nest habitats and conducting ecological surveys in green spaces. If a late active nest is discovered, staff should leave a buffer zone of at least 10 meters around the nest.

While this ruling is a win for the Bobolink, agricultural practices continue to threaten many grassland species. Mowing hayfields before nesting is complete, overgrazing, and pesticide use need to be addressed. Saving Bobolinks will require conserving grasslands and educating farmers to delay mowing, use rotational grazing, and avoid pesticide use. These practices can be encouraged through stewardship programs that offer financial incentives for preserving habitat.

For now, the fine serves as a precedent and will hopefully encourage other landowners to ensure that routine activities, such as mowing, include measures to protect vulnerable grassland species like the Bobolink.

For decades, Royal Bank Plaza was one of Toronto’s deadliest buildings for migratory birds. Every spring and fall migration, hundreds of birds collided with its golden glass towers, mistaking reflections of the sky and trees for open flight paths.

Located at 200 Bay Street, the Royal Bank Plaza has been monitored since 1996 by the Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) Canada, a registered charity dedicated to reducing bird–building collisions. FLAP Canada volunteers patrol buildings throughout the city, collecting dead and injured birds. To date, volunteers have documented more than 4,600 collisions there, including 2,738 fatalities.

Now, after years of advocacy and persistence, this collision hotspot has been transformed. Over the summer of 2025, all facades were treated with Feather Friendly® adhesive markers — small, high-contrast dots that break up reflections and make glass visible to birds. These have been tested and recommended by leading authorities and are proven to dramatically reduce bird strikes.

“This project was more than just ‘a nice to have’ environmental initiative,” says Paul Groleau, Vice President of Feather Friendly. “It was imperative, since bird strikes were happening on a massive scale for decades.”

Although the retrofit is long overdue, advocates are celebrating this milestone — and hope it will set a precedent.

“I want to congratulate them,” says Michael Mesure, executive director of FLAP. “And I hope this will serve as a showcase for other buildings.”

A widespread issue

Across North America, collisions kill an estimated 381 million to 1.03 billion birds each year, with 16–42 million deaths in Canada and 365–988 million in the United States. Globally, the toll is thought to be in the billions.

Birds cannot perceive glass as a solid barrier; instead, they see reflections of trees, sky, and vegetation, and mistake them for reality. Or they see plants through transparent glass and attempt to fly to them. Collisions are most common during spring and fall migration, when high concentrations of birds are traveling to and from their breeding grounds.

Royal Bank Plaza was a textbook example of the problem, with large expanses of reflective windows. Like many other downtown towers, it sits near Lake Ontario on a migratory pathway. Many birds use shorelines as visual cues to help them navigate, congregating along the vegetated coastline to feed and rest. As they move inland, they can be funnelled into the maze of glass towers like this one.

Over the years, Mesure reached out to the owners and property managers, but every time he started to make headway, staff were replaced or the building was sold. Since it was built in 1979, the Royal Bank Plaza changed hands six times.

“This is the challenge with these massive pieces of real estate,” Mesure explains. “You put so much work into building relationships, and then boom — you’re starting from scratch with a whole new group of people.”

Strength in numbers

Mesure wasn’t the only one concerned about collisions at Royal Bank Plaza. In November 2021, Pearl Shore started writing to RBC and the building owners (then Oxford Properties and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board), asking them to act. Shore is the founder of Never Collide, a volunteer organization that advocates for bird-safe buildings and provides DIY advocacy templates to help others effect change.

“It takes effort to educate owners on the issue and provide the science, data and solutions to stop bird collisions,” says Shore, “But most building operators that Never Collide have engaged with have done the work.”

This time, Never Collide and FLAP joined forces — and the timing couldn’t have been better. In January 2022, the building was sold to Pontegadea, the family investment vehicle of Zara founder Amancio Ortega. Colliers Real Estate Management Services took over property management. With a new owner and property manager, a window of opportunity opened.

That spring, Mesure and his colleague Lisa Horn conducted a BirdSafe® risk assessment for every façade of the building, evaluating factors like reflections and proximity to greenery. They also analyzed FLAP’s data, which provided a wealth of information about where birds tend to collide the most. The report outlined the most lethal facades and provided an action plan to reduce bird-window collisions.

In the fall of 2024, another voice joined the chorus: Nature Canada. Established in 1939, Nature Canada is the country’s oldest national nature charity.

Autumn Jordan, organizer of Nature Canada’s Bird Friendly City program, says that “Nature Canada leveraged Toronto’s Bird Friendly City status to move the needle forward for more bird-safe measures to take place.”

The trio wrote a joint letter to Pontegadea, RBC and Colliers, requesting mitigation measures to stop the bird-glass collisions at 200 Bay Street. By working together, they were finally able to achieve success.

“This time, bringing the three of us together and really starting to push is in part what made them take that final leap,” says Mesure.

Finally, in May of 2025, after years of effort, the trio got the news they had worked so hard for: formal confirmation that the retrofit would move forward, along with a note thanking them for their dedication to protecting birds.

“The grit and the continued communications paid off,” says Shore.

A tall order

The retrofit itself was no small undertaking. Approximately 55,000 square feet of exterior glass was treated, covering 94% of windows up to 16 metres — the height range where most bird collisions occur. This approach aligns with the City of Toronto’s Bird-Friendly Development Guidelines, which require visual markers on glass at lower levels of buildings to make windows visible to birds. While these standards are mandatory for new developments, this project demonstrates how existing buildings can also be brought into compliance through retrofit.

Installation began in mid-May and wrapped up in early October. The Feather Friendly® markers were installed by Toronto-based Convenience Group Inc. The markers are virtually invisible from the inside, and are designed to last more than 20 years.

“RBC management wanted a solution that was proven at scale and wouldn’t affect the building’s aesthetics,” says Groleau. “Once they saw the durability and performance on other large buildings, it was a straightforward decision.”

The building’s unusual geometry made installation especially complex, requiring boom lifts, custom scaffolding, and frequent repositioning to reach angled glass surfaces. “It’s not a simple up-and-down building,” explains Groleau. “The angled glazing means the installers had to reposition equipment often, and some corners only allowed access from very specific anchor points. Credit to the installers — they handled some tricky exposures.”

Will it work?

Mesure says it’s still too early for definitive numbers. Monitoring during the retrofit was limited due to scaffolding and fencing, and collision rates naturally fluctuate from migration to migration. FLAP volunteers will continue to monitor Royal Bank Plaza through upcoming spring and fall migrations, collecting the data needed to assess the retrofit’s real-world impact over time.

One thing is for sure: this project wills save thousands of birds’ lives.

In controlled studies and comparable projects, Feather Friendly installations have reduced bird collisions by 80–95%. McCormick Place in Chicago, one of the most lethal buildings in North America, was treated with the same product, and collisions were reduced by over 95%. In the fall of 2023, the building caused a whopping 1,280 bird fatalities; the fall after the installation, the number dropped to 18.

“Even though there will still be some collisions, I have peace of mind knowing there will be far fewer,” Mesure says.

From collision point to turning point

For Jordan, the retrofit sends an important signal — especially at a time when environmental protections are being rolled back elsewhere.

“We need all the good news we can get,” she says. “This proves it’s possible — even for iconic buildings with gold-plated windows.”

Groleau hopes the project will encourage other large property owners to act, particularly in dense downtown cores where bird deaths are concentrated.

“For me, the exciting part is that a building this prominent is taking the lead,” says Groleau. “When large towers commit, it sends a message to the rest of the industry.”

For those who spent years collecting fallen birds at the base of the towers, that message matters.

“It really is such a relief,” says Mesure. “And I just hope that we’ll see other buildings follow their lead.”

Iris Häussler was five years old when she started finding dead birds. She grew up in Germany near Lake Constance, an agricultural area known for growing hops. It was the 60s, when DDT was all the rage, and Häussler often wandered the fields after they were sprayed. As she traversed the rows, the plants sticky with chemicals, she would find poisoned birds and butterflies. These experiences etched themselves into her memory — and eventually her art.

“My artistic practice is in giving voice to something that's often overlooked,” she says.

Häussler channels this voice into her immersive installations, which revolve around fictional characters of her creation. She has shown in museums around the world, but she’s best known for exhibiting in unconventional spaces. Her first site-specific installation was in 1984 at the women’s restrooms in the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and she has since exhibited in churches, trailers, apartments, hotel rooms, stores, industrial buildings, monasteries, historic houses, and garages.

“It feels more inclusive than the white cube”, explains Häussler, who wants artwork to be accessible and relatable. Galleries, she says, can sometimes intimate people.

In June 2025, Häussler undertook an artist’s residency at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario. Located on 100 acres of forested land, the McMichael is a major public gallery of Canadian art, known for its collection of Group of Seven works.

Häussler was invited to create an installation in the historic Tom Thompson shack, which served as the home and studio for the iconic Canadian painter Tom Thompson from 1915 to 1917. Originally located in Toronto, the shack was moved to the McMichael grounds in 1962 when the City of Toronto threatened to tear it down. Today, it serves as a creative space for artists in residence.

The Tom Thompson Shack consists of two areas : a small, dark, wood-panelled den and a large, sun-filled room. Artists in residence typically use the former to create, to relax, and to store their working materials. But Häussler made it the heart of her installation.

“It's dark, it's intimate, and I don't think you would get that same feeling from the main, lofty space,” she says. “I wanted to contrast both rooms.”

The installation, named Divided Heavens, explores the fictional world of Kurt and Carl Pfister, German-born twins who were separated after their father was killed in World War II. The brothers grew up unaware of each other’s existence, yet shared a passion and empathy for migratory birds. Each twin expressed his bird obsession in a different way, and the exhibit combines their creations and collections. (For the full story, check out Häussler’s book Divided Heavens by John Geoghegan and Sarah Milroy.)

The exhibit feels like a cabinet of curiosity. In the small room, there are bookshelves lined with ornithology texts, globes adorned with strings that trace migration routes, and panes of glass etched with migration pathways and bird imprints. In the main space hangs a large mobile made of cut out bird illustrations. As they twirl and sway in the breeze, their once-living counterparts lay under a glass case, reminding us of their fragility. Encased in glass and killed by it, these specimens send a message about the danger that windows pose to birds.

Indeed, collisions with buildings are a leading killer of migratory birds. Between Canada and the United States, window collisions kill at least a billion birds every year in North America. Birds can’t tell the difference between glass and reality. If they see a reflection of the sky or trees, they perceive it as real; if they see a large plant through a window, they think they can fly into it. The only way to make a window safe is to treat it with markers (like decals) that show birds that it is a solid surface. To be effective, markers need to be spaced at least 2 inches apart or less, be placed on the outside surface of the glass, and be high enough contrast to show up against strong reflections. (For more on this issue and how to prevent collisions, see my article for Chatelaine.)

Häussler witnessed collisions firsthand in 2014 during a residency at the Odette Center at York University, and talked with staff and a few professors about retrofitting the buildings (which has been done on some of the facades). She also volunteers for FLAP, a Canadian charity dedicated to making the built environment safer for birds. Volunteers patrol the streets, looking for collision victims. Dead birds are collected for research and logged in the Global Bird Collision Mapper. Live birds (which are rare) are sent to the Toronto Wildlife Centre for rehabilitation.

While Häussler’s art isn’t advocacy per se, it sends a powerful message and sparks memories. After experiencing the installation, many visitors have talked about seeing a bird collide with a window, or finding a dead bird. These recollections offer an entry point for Häussler to discuss the issue and suggest actions people can take to make their homes safer for birds.

“That's when the magic happens,” she says. “When you have a conversation.”

I was there to witness the magic happen. As I was photographing Häussler in the shack, a couple walked in, and she gave them a tour. They were deeply moved by her art, and talked about how they have witnessed birds fly into the window of their cottage. They wanted to do something, but were unsure how to go about it. With warmth and enthusiasm, Häussler talked about different ways they could treat their windows — and encouraged them to take action. Before leaving, the visitors pledged to make their windows safe.

Sadly, even when people want to help birds, they often hesitate to put anything on their windows. They worry about how it will look, what the neighbours will think, or whether decals will ruin their view. Häussler addresses this barrier in a way that no one else does: creating artistic, custom window installations for people’s homes and cottages.

Since most people can’t afford custom installations, Häussler teaches people how to make their own artistic decals. She has run workshops at the Toronto School of Art, the Prince Edward County Art Lab, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), the Art Gallery of Mississauga, and most recently, the McMichael. She has partnered with landscape architect Victoria Taylor to teach how to create bird-friendly habitats in our gardens — and make sure the birds they attract don’t collide with windows. After giving a talk on the issue, Häussler guides participants through a freehand drawing exercise to create unique shapes on paper. These are transferred onto self-adhesive vinyl foil, cut out, and playfully arranged into patterns. Participants can take them home, peel off the backing, and put them on their windows or glass railings. Some have even sent her photos of how they treated their windows.

Rather than lecturing or shaming, Häussler inspires people with her art, provokes empathy, and fosters creativity. Her approach not only breaks the taboo that windows are untouchable — it encourages people to treat their windows like a canvas. All to save the precious lives of birds.

Häussler admits that it can be a big leap from inspiration to action, but she seems to have found the right recipe:

“It takes people being encouraged, in a state of courage, in a state of urge, in a state of exploration, experiment, and joy.”

Divided Heavens is on until September 28. Book your tickets here.