The Mentor Public Library is hosting a program about the team that’s making Northeast Ohio safer for migrating birds. Every spring and fall, millions of birds migrate through Ohio on the way to their breeding and overwintering grounds. Most species migrate at night, so the lights on tall buildings can disorient them and even cause them to crash and die.
Like moths to a flame, migrating birds looking to rest and refuel are drawn to the bright lights of downtown Cleveland. For many it will be their last stop. Each year, thousands of birds heading to and from Canada and the tropics plow into downtown buildings, leaving many of the tiny, feathered visitors dead or wounded on sidewalks and windowsills.
In this episode I sit down with Tim Jasinski who is a Wildlife Rehab Specialist at the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center in Bay Village, Ohio. Tim has been a life long birder and loves animals more than you know. Join us as he details a lot about the Cleveland Lights Out program and what they’re doing to help save birds from window strikes in an urban downtown.
As we enjoy the beauty of fall in Ohio, bird migration is well underway in our state. Ohio is blessed as one of the best places to witness one of nature’s greatest spectacles. Warblers, shorebirds, hawks, and waterfowl are moving through our state in vast numbers, following age-old routes from northern nesting grounds to warmer winter hideaways. There are countless places to enjoy this phenomenon, from your own backyard, to the local park, and to our great state parks, national wildlife refuges, and national park sites.
A crowded classroom greeted SaraJane Kukawka, seasonal naturalist at the Rocky River Nature Center, on Sunday afternoon as she educated visitors about methods for lowering migratory bird losses from collisions with buildings.
After two hours of active scouting for dead or injured birds in the dark, a group with Lights Out Cleveland early Thursday morning was delighted to come up empty-handed, to find not one fragile flyer that had collided with a building and dropped to the ground.
Lights out — or lights on? That’s the question that is beginning to roil downtown skyscraper owners and operators as a group of volunteers pushes for a Lights Out Cleveland campaign during periods of bird migration in the spring and fall.
A campaign is encouraging Cleveland buildings to turn out the lights at night in an effort to save migratory birds. Ohio Lights Out and Lights Out Cleveland said building collisions are the leading cause of death in birds during migration in North America, resulting in about a half a billion fatalities each year.
A statewide project called Ohio Lights Out, is trying to get big buildings in big cites to turn off lights at night so that migrating birds don’t get confused and slam into them and die.
Tim Jasinski from the Lake Erie Nature & Science Center, along with Harvey Webster from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History were in the Fox 8 Cleveland studios this morning promoting the Lights Out Cleveland effort and the 3rd Annual Birds of Lake Erie Day. Check out the clip here
