Millions of birds will be migrating all weekend. You can help them by turning out your lights

October 12, 2024—The bird migration predictions for the next three nights are an interesting mix: high, medium, low and none. But the bottom line is simple: 1.4 million birds will be migrating across Connecticut.

Our advice is to keep it simple. Turn your lights out each night, from at least 11 p.m to 6 a.m.

Most birds migrate at night, and they are attracted to lights, which can disorient them and send them flying toward and then into buildings and windows. Turning your lights out reduces that risk and helps birds find safe places to rest and eat for the next leg of their journey south.

The migration predictions come from the Colorado State University Aeroeco Lab. They show 693,000 birds passing over tonight, with a high alert for two-thirds of the state and a medium alert for the rest.

Things slack off tomorrow. The prediction is for 104,000 birds—that’s worthy of no alert at all for all but a small part of the northeast corner. And then expect another big night Monday; about half the state has a high alert and half medium, with 627,000 birds predicted to fly over Connecticut.

Connecticut Audubon’s 2023 Connecticut State of the Birds report included window and building crashes as one of the key issues in bird conservation. We’ve put together a summary, from an article written by Viveca Morris and Meredith Marges, both of Yale University.

• An estimated one billion birds die in the United States every year from crashing into buildings. The problem stems from birds not being able to see or recognize glass. Mirrored and transparent glass can create the illusion of habitat or open sky, luring birds to their deaths. While skyscrapers can be dangerous to birds, houses and low-rise buildings (one to eleven stories) account for the vast majority of collisions.
• These bird deaths are preventable. Over the past 50 years, research has yielded a wide range of materials and strategies to reduce collisions with buildings, both new and existing. These solutions include:
  • Glass treated with a ceramic coating to make it visible to birds.
  • Insect window screens.
  • Patterned window films or markers.
  • Glass with a UV pattern.
  • Reducing light pollution.

The report strongly recommends that Connecticut begin working on bird-friendly building policies, codes, and incentives. The authors point to New York City’s bird-friendly building law as an excellent model for such a policy.

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!

(Yellow-rumped Warbler photo on the Natural Selections page by Gilles Carter.)