Lights Out Dallas bird survey team categorizing and preparing bird mortalities for storage Lights Out Dallas volunteers survey the strike-zone of a building in downtown Dallas. Houston ranked first and Chicago second out of the nation’s 125 most populous cities. A recent study ranked Dallas third in the United States as the city exposing the most numbers of nocturnally migrating birds to artificial light. Light seems to be the main culprit as studies show the amount of light a building emits is the key predictor of bird collision, even more so than height.Ĭollision is the second highest cause of bird mortality behind depredation by feral cats. An estimated 365-988 million birds die annually in collisions with structures in the United States. Most migratory birds travel at night when temperatures are cooler and predators less prevalent the growing intensity of light emanating from urban areas attracts them from their migratory elevations down toward cities and greatly increases their risk of collision. It’s an amazing feat, especially considering they weigh less than a French fry! Bird migration knits our hemisphere more closely together than anything else, not even weather compares and for many birds, migration is the most hazardous period of their lives. Some species fly thousands of miles and trans-Gulf migrants, like hummingbirds, fly over the Gulf of Mexico on a 17-hour nonstop flight. Up to two billion birds soar across Texas making the Lone Star sky a bird superhighway. Avian migration, one of nature’s most extraordinary spectacles, takes flight every spring and fall.
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