A glass company has launched a glazing in the UK which will save the lives of birds.
The glass has seen its first use in a lookout tower in Lindisfarne, opened by the Prince of Wales.
Each migration season millions of birds die by crashing into glazed buildings, but Germany’s Arnold Glas has developed a glass more visible to our feathered friends.
The Ornilux glass has been installed in the lookout tower and visitors centre on Holy Island, at Lindisfarne.
Ornilux is part of a new movement called bio-mimicry where science and art emulates nature’s biological ideas to solve human problems.
Birds have the ability to see light in the ultra-violet spectrum. In nature Orb Weaver spiders incorporate UV reflective strands of silk in their webs, so birds will not fly through and destroy them.
Like the Orb Weaver web the Ornilux glazing has a web of lines coated onto the glass which are barely discernible to humans but reflect the UV light, alerting birds to the presence of glass.
