Hundreds of birds dead after hitting Galveston building

Various species may have been disoriented

GALVESTON — Thousands of birds were approaching the Texas Gulf Coast after a long, exhausting flight across the Gulf of Mexico when a storm forced them lower, on a collision course with the tallest building in Galveston.

The lights on the 23-story American National Building may have disoriented them and they likely tried to circle it, but the high winds sent hundreds into the structure late Wednesday. Some likely crashed into mirrored or clear windows that looked like a place to escape the storm. By Thursday morning, the animal control supervisor for the Galveston police had counted 395 dead birds.

“This is the largest event like this I have ever been a part of in over 10 years,” said the supervisor, Josh Henderson.

Houston Audubon posted on Twitter a photo taken by Henderson of a pile of hundreds of dead birds, calling the incident “a tough reminder for bird-friendly lighting and design.”

Up to a billion birds die each year from collisions with glass windows, according to the American Bird Conservancy.

The bird deaths in Galveston may have been different from most such collisions, which often happen during the day when a bird tries to fly through a closed or mirrored window.

“It was a rare event, no doubt about it, said Richard Gibbons, conservation director for Houston Audubon.

Gibbons said the birds

fly at night to take advantage of the cooler air, get bearings by the north star and avoid predators. The birds normally fly at 1,000 feet to 5,000 feet.

Sarah Flournoy, bird-friendly communities program manager for Houston Audubon, said the birds were migrating from Central and South America to nesting grounds farther north. The Houston area is a good place for migratory flocks to stop and rest.

Flournoy believes lights on the building may have confused the birds. “They will end up circling confused and not know how to get out of it,” Gibbons said. “Maybe they were attracted to it, maybe trying to get around it, but were slammed back into it by those winds.”

Gibbons said the building owner is not to blame.

“What we need to do as a bird conservation organization is try to set up an alert system,” he said. When bad weather strikes during the spring migration, an alert could be sent asking building owners to turn off their lights, Gibbons said.

Henderson arrived at the American National Building in downtown Galveston shortly after receiving a call at 7:20 p.m. He was surprised at the high number of bird deaths as he retrieved dozens blown into nooks at the base of the building. He was unprepared for the hundreds of dead birds collected by the building maintenance staff and dumped into a trash barrel to keep them out of view of employees arriving for work.

He counted 25 species of birds, including 90 Nashville warblers, 41 ovenbirds and 21 American redstarts.

Henderson said typical window strikes involve a handful of birds, maybe five or a dozen. “To see numbers fall in the hundreds is abnormal,” he said.

Henderson and Flournoy said half the dead birds will be sent to Louisiana State University and half to Texas A&M University at College Station, where DNA and genetic samples will be taken.