Lights Out Alert for Saturday, October 5: 1.1 million birds predicted to migrate over Connecticut

October 4, 2024—One of the first big bird migration nights of the fall is coming. The Colorado State University Aeroeco lab predicts that 1.1 million birds will be flying over Connecticut on Saturday night, October 5.

Each year, well over 1 billion birds die in the United States when they crash into buildings. Many of those doomed birds are lured by lights as they migrate.

Turning out your outside lights at night is a small but effective action you can take to help protect birds. It’s worth doing every night but it’s especially important on nights of high migration.

Connecticut Audubon is part of the Lights Out Connecticut coalition, which is working statewide to reduce bird crashes. In the decades since 1970, the bird population of North America has fallen by about 3 billion birds, or 30 percent. Reducing the number of birds that die in building crashes is one of the key ways to bring birds back.

If you’d like to receive a text in the future about when to turn out your lights, sign up for Connecticut Audubon’s Lights Out alerts here. Thank you!