By Valerie Reiss, filling in for Amy.

Have you ever had the unfortunate experience of seeing (and hearing) a bird crash into a window?

While on a silent Buddhist retreat, Jim Kullander, Omega Institute’s editor-in-chief, saw two sparrows crash into his cabin’s giant glass windows, profoundly affecting him. After the second sparrow’s death, he covered the window with sticky notes so it wouldn’t happen again–and also asked the center to affix life-saving decals on all the cabins’ windows (it had already done this on several buildings). He recently wrote an essay for Beliefnet, Not One More Sparrow, about the experience.

When he got home, he did some research and found these great decals, which prevent birds from crashing into windows, a surprisingly common occurrence. Kullander writes: “I was shocked to learn from the Cornell University Ornithology Lab website that an estimated 100 million birds die every year by colliding with windows.”

Here are the bird-redirecting decals in spiderweb form.

And here they are in slightly prettier (if you’re averse to webs) feather form.

And here’s a page from Cornell that tells you how to care for dazed birds and prevent crashes from happening. The site says that even plastic wrap can cue the birds to take another route.