Commonwealth Secondary School in Singapore hung around 80 CDs on the staffroom pantry windows to reduce repeated collisions of collared kingfishers with reflective glass since April 2026 [1, 2, 3]. Before the CDs were installed, kingfishers collided about 10 times per hour at the site [1, 2, 3].
The effort was initiated by 41-year-old biology teacher Mr Jacob Tan after he observed the frequent bird collisions in April. He and two colleagues collected CDs from staff and hung them from strings outside the windows to disrupt the reflection of nearby greenery. "The whole point is to break the reflection of the greenery," Mr Tan said [1].
After the initial CDs were hung, collisions dropped sharply to about two per day, then were eliminated entirely when more CDs were added [1, 2, 3]. "My colleagues will also alert me if they witness a collision. We’re getting everyone involved in contributing these CDs because the teachers want something to be done. We felt that it was pitiful to see such a beautiful bird (going through this)," Mr Tan explained [1].
The school plans to install more permanent solutions such as non-reflective stickers to prevent future incidents [1, 2, 3]. Mr Tan noted that previous sticker installations on computer lab windows helped prevent collisions after a male jambu fruit dove, a near-threatened species, died from hitting reflective glass in 2018 [1]. "The non-reflective stickers helped to put an end to bird collisions at those sites," he said [1].
Commonwealth Secondary is one of the pilot schools in the Ministry of Education's Eco Stewardship Programme launched in March 2021 [1, 2, 3]. The programme aims to advance environmental projects within schools.
The next step for the school is to install the planned non-reflective stickers as a longer-term bird collision solution to complement the successful CD intervention [1, 2, 3].
