Red-winged blackbirds are back in Northeast Ohio. It means more bird species will soon follow for spring migration, a significant event for our region. We know bird watching is a popular pastime for many, so it is why we are following through on our previous reports about preventing bird strikes in Cleveland.
In Philadelphia, there were 1,500 in one day. In Chicago, there were 1,000 in one morning—victims of the McCormack Place convention center. And on one day in Cleveland last week, over 100 birds flying south over Lake Erie crashed into buildings downtown, a natural byproduct of the unavoidable mix of fall migration and glass skyscrapers.
Devin Mingesbruney, is a graduate student at Miami University studying conservation biology with a specific focus on birds. She is an avid birder and volunteer with Lights Out, Columbus. While walking or driving at night in downtown Columbus, it’s hard not to miss all the bright lights illuminating the streets, parking lots, and high-rise buildings.
Every spring, millions of migrating birds pass over Northeast Ohio on their way to breeding grounds in Canada. The epic journey has many hazards, including navigating the North Coast’s urban landscape.
Lights Out, a volunteer operation, is trying to expand their downtown patroller base and implore buildings to adopt bird-safe glass and turn lights out at night. Recently, at 4:30 in the morning, Michelle Manzo woke up in her west side apartment and drove downtown sporting a neon reflective safety vest and lugging a sea-foam green net a child might use to catch butterflies.
On a warm May morning this spring, Kandace Glanville walked past Mirror Lake on The Ohio State University campus, gingerly holding a paper lunch bag in her right hand. She strode through dewy grass until she reached the edge of a small wooded area just west of Browning Amphitheatre. Glanville squatted, removed the paper clip securing the bag, and reached in. She pulled out a Bay-breasted Warbler, a tiny bird just 5.5 inches long, stunned from colliding with a window on campus earlier that morning.
Lights Out Akron-Canton has scheduled the first set of volunteer orientations! We will most likely have a couple more after the monitoring season has begun.
Lights Out Cleveland is a group of local partnering organizations working together to create awareness about the effects brightly lit buildings have on nocturnally migrating birds. Through this awareness we will create change and save migrating birds’ lives.
