Saving Migratory Birds

Quinta M A Z AT L A N

FLIPPING A SWITCH CAN Save Migratory Birds By John Brush, Urban Ecologist, City of McAllen

The world has become a brighter place, quite literally. We affix lights to almost everything we build and use. We use them when we are awake, and many of them continue to shine as we sleep. Our dependency on light, however, can blind us to how it affects the other organisms that share our spaces.

One of the most horrifying sounds for a bird-lover is the sickening thud of a bird hitting a window. It is startling to hear and tragic to see. The most obvious result, though not guaranteed, is the outright death of the bird. The most striking examples occur during migration. In 2017, the Animal Services of Galveston, Texas documented nearly 400 birds killed by one building. A 2014 study done by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and Oklahoma State University put a number to how many birds die from hitting buildings: a whopping 365 to 988 million per year in the United States alone.

Because the majority of American songbirds migrate at night, artificial light plays an important role in causing bird-building collisions. Birds are attracted to light, meaning that brightly lit areas can disorient and lure birds off-track. Towns and cities, where concentrations of buildings and glass surfaces abound, become particularly dangerous. Yet despite the appalling mass death events at buildings like those in Galveston and Charlotte, just over 2 out of every 5 birds that die from collisions are at one of our residences.

The circumstances ultimately responsible for birds crashing into buildings are not going away; birds are going to keep migrating and the number and size of cities will continue to grow. However, there is a readily apparent way we can mitigate the impact: limit how much light we let into the sky.

There are three key areas to focus on to reduce light pollution for birds:

1.

Turn off unnecessary outdoor lights. This one is the simplest solution. If you do not need to have a light on, please turn it off. For example, turning off decorative outdoor lighting, especially when the lights face upward, can make a big difference.

2. Reduce interior lighting. In addition to turning off lights when rooms are not occupied, this can be accomplished by using task lighting or pulling down window coverings to prevent light trespass.

3. Use fully shielded light fixtures. The less light that escapes into the sky, the less light will meet a thrush or warbler eye. Using fully shielded or downward shielded lights means you are preventing it from escaping above a horizontal plane.

Not just birds would benefit from fewer lights at night; it would benefit our wallets too. An estimated $3 billion dollars is wasted by poor outdoor lighting in the United States alone (IDA), and the fewer lights we use, the smaller effect it has on our electric bills. It also would affect our health. In humans, exposure to ALAN is a risk factor for breast cancer and circadian misalignment, which may have negative effects on our mental and physical well-being.

There are plenty of reasons to reduce our lighting. This fall migration, I hope you will join Quinta Mazatlan and the Center for Urban Ecology in reducing how much light we use at night to help our migratory birds on their way.

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