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[We would like to thank A. Keller-Herzog, P. MacDonald, and others at the Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability, J. Niwa and W. English at Safe Wings Ottawa, and D. Doherty at Bird-friendly Ottawa for supporting this project. We thank community association representatives W. Burpee and P. MacDonald (FHACA), J. Freeman and T. Beauchamp (CGA), R. Philar (HCA), and D. Chapman (WCA), and the SOCI/ANTH 2180 class for recruiting survey respondents. RTB, AJVL, and AK were funded by NSERC (RGPIN 04888), the Kenneth Molson Foundation, and Environment and Climate Change Canada (GCXE24S042).]

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Additional Editor Comments:

Based on the reviewers' comments, I invite the authors to submit a major revision of the manuscript.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: This article summarizes a survey conducted in Ottawa, Canada, about bird-window collisions, which are a major cause of bird deaths in North America. The survey found that most Ottawa residents are aware of and concerned about bird-window collisions, and a high percentage are willing to treat their windows to prevent them. However, several factors act as barriers to implementing window treatments, especially the perception of infrequent collision and aesthetic concerns about how window treatments look and affect clear views as well as lack of time and costs associated with treating windows. The study suggests that offering free materials, aesthetically pleasing options, and clear instructions could help overcome these barriers. Ultimately, the authors advocate for targeted public messaging to highlight the impact of residential homes on this issue and to encourage widespread adoption of bird-friendly window treatments.

The article is interesting, well written and succinct. I provide comments below to help clarify the writing and the presentation of results and subsequent discussion.

Major comments:

- Are the legends correct on Figures 4 and 6? I ask because I don’t understand the “already have” for many of the responses such as “no access” (+ others) and what that has to do with willingness. Also, in the methods, I thought you asked the questions on a 5-pt Likert Scale but the answers aren’t presented that way. Could you please clarify all this where needed.

- Paragraph that starts at L340. There is quite a bit of literature about the gap between environmental knowledge and pro-environmental action. I suggest integrating some of that literature into this paragraph or a new one so that you can tie your results to theoretical models of this “gap”. This is one key paper along those lines: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504620220145401 but there are others.

- Are the mixed models fitted with all the respondents or just the ones who do not already have treatments on their windows? If the former, when you run the models with the subset, do the results change? What about for the correlations?

- In the methods, you say that socio-economic and demographic questions were optional on the survey, what is the effective response rate for those questions, and how many respondents are included in the statistical models you build later? I believe this should be included at the very least in the figure captions, maybe as n=XXX).

- L183, will need to be changed to the link to the OSF repository upon publication

- The references are not formatted properly (e.g. journal titles should be italicized) and some references are missing information (e.g. 12 and 21). Please check those thoroughly or use a formatting software such as Zotero (free).

Minor comments:

- For future surveys you might conduct, Dillman et al. (https://sesrc.wsu.edu/about/total-design-method/) recommends writing questions as statements and then using the standard definitely agree to disagree Likert scale. So your questions about “Are you willing to not willing to X”, become “I am willing to X”.

- For Figure 2, in the grey squares, I would put the p-values or have some way to visualize them. This might work for you but is not the only way to do this: https://indrajeetpatil.github.io/ggstatsplot/articles/web_only/ggcorrmat.html You could also just add the p-value in parenthesis in the colored box for ease of interpretation (or present this Figure as a table which may be more efficient)

- Line 67, could you specify what a low-rise building is?

- Line 84, missing “on”

- Line 97 at the end, missing “and”

- Line 110, in my field, the word data is treated as a plural (datum is the singular) so it would be “data were” but I’ve noticed this seems to be journal/field specific.

- Line 123, spell out “4” as “four”. I think anything below 12 is expected to be spelled out (occurs on L 157 and 160, 192 too)

- L163, it would be helpful to have the references for the literature that informed the list of barriers and solutions (assuming it’s <~6 refs)

- L172, instead of “ran” consider “fit” and the order of the sentence could be different: you fit the model Mixed Effect Model with a cumulating link and Laplace approx..

- L212, what is the p-value for the observation and knowledge questions?

- L219-220, I don’t see that info in Figure 1.

- L219 and 225, you repeat the same info about already treated households

- L227-231 seem to be a repeat of L206-212 as well. Pick one or merge the two perhaps?

- L237, what does PE stand for?

- L235, consider replacing “also affected” by “were also associated with” since the first implies causation

- L320, consider replacing “older” with “middle-aged” or “over 50 years old”?

- L320, I think you need to rephrase that sentence of maybe replace the “and” with a “who” or “who identified with”

- Sentence starting at L322 has too many “ands”

- L325, results don’t find anything, please rephrase

- L327-328, you say multiple studies corroborate your findings, but only cite one (32). Either chance studies to study or cite more than one study.

- L332, at “Respondents”, consider making that a new paragraph.

- In a future study, it might be interesting to about observed collisions where the bird(s) died upon impact or not.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript describes survey-based research study in which a sample of citizens from various neighborhoods in Ottawa, Canada were surveyed about their knowledge and perception of bird–window collisions at residential homes, their willingness to treat windows to prevent collisions, and barriers to action. The survey resulted in several significant correlations between variables, including perception of bird–window collisions and willingness to treat windows. Somewhat surprisingly, perception of collisions as a problem that should be addressed was more significantly correlated with willingness to act than experience witnessing a bird–window collision. Another important finding is that many respondents had witnessed a collision at home but needed more evidence that such collisions are a big enough problem before they would consider treating their windows. Significant barriers to respondents treating their windows at home included time, cost, and lack of clear instructions. All these points can help inform conservation groups and collision monitoring programs tailor their educational, outreach, and advocacy efforts to better communicate that most collisions occur at low-rise residential buildings rather than at tall downtown buildings that are often featured in news media as being the top cause of collisions.

Considering the great numbers of birds that die each year from building collisions in North America alone, this study has much merit, as it helps fill a gap in the published literature and should aid conservationists and communications experts working to spread awareness of and reduce bird–building collisions. As an ecologist and researcher with years of experience leading a collision monitoring program, I was excited to see this study and look forward to further studies that will build off this.

The manuscript is well-written overall, presented in logical order, and includes sound statistical analyses, useful supplementary tables, and relevant references. I recommend accepting the manuscript, pending revisions.

Major Feedback:

1) While the authors mention some limitations of their survey in the Discussion, the Methods section does not describe any steps that were taken to reduce bias in data collection. This is a serious concern, as survey results are highly sensitive to issues such as sampling bias, non-response bias, and social desirability bias. I recommend that the authors provide more detail on how the survey was designed and administered to minimize these risks (e.g., question design, question randomization, recruitment strategy, etc.). Without this information, it is difficult to evaluate the reliability of the findings.

2) For readers who are not familiar with Likert scale charts (like me), Figure 1 may be difficult to understand as presented. I recommend adding more detailed explanations of how to interpret this to avoid confusion and perhaps add percentages inside the bars. For example: explain why Fig. 1 has positive and negative percentages, why the bars are staggered, and what this means.

3) The use of CLMMs is appropriate for ordinal responses, and I appreciate that the authors ran two separate models and presented the results in forest plots. However, the basis for Figure 3 is not entirely clear. From Table S2, it appears that the demographic model used ‘>50 years’, ‘2–4 story house’, ‘female’, and ‘owns a bird feeder’ as reference categories, but this is not explained in the text. The reference categories should be stated clearly in the main text or Fig. 3 caption so readers can interpret the effect estimates in relation to the correct baseline groups.

In addition, one statistically significant covariate (age 16-30) is not included in Fig. 3, whereas two non-significant covariates (transgender, non-binary) are included. In contrast, Fig. 5 displays all predictors, regardless of significance. I recommend clarifying the rationale for which covariates are displayed in each forest plot and ensuring consistency in presentation. Otherwise, readers may incorrectly assume that omitted variables were not significant or were not tested.

Lastly, I recommend including an explanation of what the parameter estimates mean in the main text for clarity. Currently, this information is only stated in Tables S2 & S3.

4) The Discussion section is quite wordy and restates much information presented in the Results section, making it unnecessarily long and repetitive. Revising for conciseness, focusing on what the results mean and why this should matter to readers, without restating the results, would make the discussion much stronger and more digestible/useful for readers.

Minor Feedback:

Minor suggestions regarding grammatical errors, typos, etc. can be found as comments in the attached pdf. Other minor feedback is listed below.

1) Throughout the manuscript, the authors use a hyphen (-) between “bird” and “window” when referring to collisions, but an en dash (–) should be used instead. Hyphens should be used in compound adjectives, e.g. bird-friendly materials, whereas an en dash should be used to indicate linkages between two things, e.g. bird–window collisions.

2) Ln 38-40: It isn’t helpful to report parameter estimates in the abstract, as readers cannot interpret these outside the context of the full model results. I recommend highlighting the meaning of the results (relative strength, significance) rather than raw statistical values in the abstract.

3) Ln 65-66: The article cited here (Klem & Saenger 2013) isn’t about window films or decals. They tested UV-treated windows and Acopian BirdSavers in this study. There are several better options to cite here, including DeGroot et al. 2022 (doi: 10.7717/peerj.13142) or Bird-friendly Building Design from American Bird Conservancy (https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Bird-friendly-Building-Guide_2015.pdf).

4) Ln 182-183: Please add an accession number or URL prior to publication.

5) Ln 186-195: It appears that the percentages reported in this paragraph are based on all 465 respondents rather than the 422 included in the analysis. For clarity and consistency throughout the Results section, please base these percentages on the number of responses used in the analysis.

6) Ln 187-189: It is unclear if the percentages of older respondents and those who identified as white are based on the number of female respondents only or all respondents. Please reword to clarify.

7) Ln 189-190: It is unclear why counts are reported here rather than percentages. I recommend reporting percentages for consistency. Again, these should be based on the number of responses used in the analysis.

8) Ln 212: For consistency, please report the p-value with the correlation coefficient, as in line 209.

9) Ln 219-220, 224-225: The percentage of respondents who had already treated their windows is reported twice in this paragraph. I recommend deleting the last sentence and removing the word “only” from the first sentence.

10) Figure 3: To aid in comparing the importance of variables within categories, I recommend reordering the variables to be grouped by category rather than strictly in increasing numeric order. I also recommend denoting which variables are significant to aid readers who may be less familiar with interpreting forest plots.

11) Ln 289: Please clarify what is meant by “more information”. (More information about what?)

12) Figure 5: As with Fig. 3, I recommend denoting which barriers are significant.

13) Ln 320-328: Considering that the authors reported in the Results that the largest proportion of respondents were older, white females, I wonder if this may introduce bias into the survey results and interpretation via sampling bias. Thus, I would like to know if the authors took this into consideration.

14) Ln 333-336: It is not clear if the authors are referring to all respondents or a subset of respondents here, nor why this group is considered more likely to act. Please clarify. Also, the end of this sentence reads clumsily. I suggest revising to something like, “…suggesting barriers that prevent people from taking action still exist.”

15) Ln 362-363: I suggest changing “under” to “nearly” for clarity.

16) Ln 399: I suggest inserting “frequently” before “followed”, as carcasses are not always depredated.

17) Ln 426-427: This is true, but considering the survey results, it seems this will only lead to a significant number of individuals treating their windows if the monetary aid is in conjunction with suggestions for bird-friendly products with clear, simple instructions (such as FeatherFriendly). I feel this is worth mentioning.

18) Ln 447-450: The way this sentence reads, it suggests that such a shift has already occurred, rather than a shift is needed. I suggest revising as, “…they also suggest a shift is needed in the type…”.

19) Ln 457: Perhaps replace “a few” with “some”, as this makes it seem that very few collisions occur at individual homes.

20) Ln 461-463: An excellent resource that could be included as an example here is the Glass Collisions section of American Bird Conservancy’s website, particularly their Products & Solutions Database (https://abcbirds.org/glass-collisions/products-database/).

21) References: It would benefit readers to include DOI numbers for referenced articles.

22) Ln 510-511: Please correct the formatting for the Warren (2013) reference, as it is a Master’s Thesis.

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what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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<p>Barriers and opportunities to preventing residential bird-window collisions

PONE-D-25-29481R1

Dear Dr. Lysyk,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Teddy Lazebnik

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #2: The authors did a thorough job of addressing my concerns and suggestions, and the revised manuscript is much stronger and clearer for readers. Specifically, bias reduction is now addressed in the Methods section. The first paragraph in the Results section is much clearer now, with percentages based on the number of responses used in analyses. The revised Fig. 1 is much easier to interpret now with percentages added and additional caption text. CLMM results have been corrected, and parameter estimates are now explained in the main text. The revised Fig. 3 is also easier to read, and the caption now includes all pertinent information. The revised Discussion section is more concise, flows much better, and is more effective than the original.

I only have one suggestion & a few corrections, listed below:

Ln 93–96: I suggest changing this back to two separate sentences, as combining them results in a long sentence that’s tough to follow.

Ln 152: Correct the misplaced en dash (should be between “bird” and “window”).

Ln 166: Insert missing quotations at end of sentence.

Ln 410, 422, 423, 427, 493: Remove extraneous hyphens from the phrase “bird—window collisions”. (In these lines, both an en dash and hyphen are used, e.g. bird—-window collisions.)

Ln 422: It appears that the word “and” is missing between “houses” and “low-rise buildings”.

Ln 442: Delete extraneous period after “Fig 4”.

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what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy

Reviewer #2: No

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