A darker city sky is the goal of Lights Out for Birds
Bird enthusiasts speak in somber tones recalling the evening in May four years ago when nearly 400 winged carcasses were found at the foot of the American National Building in Galveston. American redstarts and Nashville and Blackburnian warblers were just two among two dozen different species found dead. On a migratory path back from warmer confines, the birds’ flight pattern shifted low because of a storm, sending them on a deadly collision course with the 32-story downtown building.
The building’s managers tried to sweep up hundreds of tiny carcasses before people reported for work the next week. And they asked local bird experts what they could do to avoid future incidents.
The Lights Out for Birds Program began shortly after.
A 2019 study by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology estimated 600 million birds die each year by colliding with buildings. Only Chicago topped Houston for casualties, in both spring and fall, with Dallas third.
As is often the case with behaviors, change has come slow.
The past year has seen a stronger push and greater civic response to the Lights Out initiative. This spring, Houston is the
center of a particularly focused effort to get tall buildings, car dealerships and private residences to turn down nonessential lights in hopes of providing safer passage for an estimated 2 billion birds that pass through the Central Flyway this time of year. Texas is the gateway for that swath of land, as birds begin to spread across North America. The hope is to create a less threatening environment for species like the Allen’s hummingbird, the wood thrush and others .
“The folks at that building in Galveston didn’t want to see that happen again,” says Anna Vallery, a conservation specialist at Audubon Houston. “They’ve been proactive about it since. And that was the start of this program. We’ve tried to find partners across the state to expand the program.”
The program continues to expand. Earlier this month, Mayor Sylvester Turner proclaimed Lights Out Nights for the span recommended by Houston Audubon — April 19 through May 7 — encouraging businesses, building managers and residents to turn off nonessential exterior lighting from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m. in hopes of creating a safer migratory space.
“The goal was to have City Hall lead by example,” Vallery says. “So we were hoping City Hall could turn out its lights for spring. The goal is to eventually lower the amount of sky glow Houston has as a whole. With all the brightly lit buildings, it’s basically a target.”
She also cited car dealerships as nighttime beacons. But the Audubon Society says homeowners and those who own rental properties can help, too, by turning off decorative exterior lighting, turn off pot and floodlights, cut down on atrium lighting, and shield any essential exterior lighting to minimize its glare.
Spring migration has already begun, but Lights Out seeks to
create a safer passage when migratory travel peaks. Vallery points out that 80 percent of North American birds are migratory, and almost all of those birds fly at night. She estimates about 600 species pass through Texas, with more than 400 of those passing over Houston.
Stars and rock stars
Birds have endured a rough half-century. A Science magazine study in 2019 found that the bird population in North America had fallen 29 percent since 1970. Isolated efforts to assist some species have been successful: Texas revels in the way it has assisted the comeback of the whooping crane — a population that dwindled to around a dozen birds 80 years ago. Vallery refers to them reverently as “sort of rock stars.” But not all species enjoy the status afforded those cranes, which flock to the Rockport/Port Aransas area in the fall
and depart in March and April.
“They’re these big, beautiful, strange dinosaurlike birds,” she says. “You don’t need expensive binoculars to see them. We don’t feel the same sense of ownership for the neotropical birds. They’re small, they migrate at night.”
She points to Cin-Ty Lee, a professor and department chair in geology at Rice University, doing work to better familiarize people with these birds. His archive of recordings includes such far-flung birds as the flufftail and the nightjar from Madagascar. But he also records from the Rice campus, where he captures the nocturnal flight calls of the green heron, the sora and others.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Colorado State University have collaborated on BirdCast migration maps, based on historical radar data and bird surveys, which they share with organizations like Houston Audubon in an effort to predict when birds will
pass through the region in hopes of dimming the urban glow.
These migratory birds often do their travel at night, when they encounter fewer predators. The birds also orient themselves with the moon and stars as well as the Earth’s magnetic field.
“Because they use the stars, the lights in tall buildings can really screw them up at night,” says Daniel Brooks, curator of vertebrate zoology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Beacons that used to represent the World Trade Center towers in New York — a sentimental memorial — nevertheless caused trouble. Brooks says he’s seen videos of birds circling the light, their patterns jarred. “Any interruption can cause big problems for them,” he says.
Texas greets the birds after a long haul, coming and going. The purple martin has been here for a while now and should be in the midst of nesting. It ranges from Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the bird winters, to Eerie, Pa. Migratory paths are as long as they are treacherous.
Clear skies
Cornell and Colorado State have shared their BirdCast site with the general public. Users can sign up to get alerts for when migration activity is expected to be high.
Former first lady Laura Bush recently penned an editorial for the Dallas Morning News urging those in the Dallas-Fort Worth region to do what they could to dim the glow this spring. “Protecting migratory birds is an easy way to take care of Texas,” she wrote.
Dallas declared a Lights Out Night last fall. Vallery says “there’s nothing wrong with using that to promote a little Dallas/Houston competition.
“We really see this as win-win across the board. It conserves energy, lowers the carbon footprint. It’s good for the bat people.”
Bat people?
“Yes, bat people and good also for bats, obviously. And it could help people potentially see stars in Houston,” Vallery says.
Not too long after the proposed spring Lights Out, bird enthusiasts will begin planning for the end of summer. Vallery says fall migration starts as early as August.
After a year in which indoor group activities all but disappeared, she’s hopeful there could be a renewed interest in birding, which is an international tourism draw along the Gulf Coast.
“I feel there has been this opportunity, where people have stopped and looked around a little more,” she says. “And in Houston in spring, these little colorful things can catch your eye. Pandemic aside, I think there’s been a renewed interest in the needs of the natural world. But this is just one of those examples of a little thing people could do that makes a big difference.”