Light Pollution Harms Migrating Birds In Northern Virginia, Advocates Say
VIRGINIA — As summer turns into fall, plenty of birds begin migrating south in preparation for winter. Northern Virginia sees a presence of these migrating birds, but dark sky advocates say light pollution can harm these migrating birds.
The Northern Virginia Bird Alliance, formerly known as the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia, is raising awareness about the impacts of light pollution on birds. DarkSky International is partnering with the National Audubon Society on a Lights Out to protect migrating birds.
“That is an effort to convince buildings, particularly taller buildings, to douse their lights, reduce their lights during the period of peak migration,” Tom Blackburn, a board member and former president of the Northern Virginia Bird Alliance, told Patch. “And for our area, that is 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. from March 15 to May 31 and then another 10 weeks, Sept. 1 to Nov. 15.
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According to the Bird Cast radar analysis, 100 million birds migrated at night over Northern Virginia last spring, and 160 million migrated over the fall period. In Fairfax County alone, data shows 3.5 million birds crossed at night on Sept. 2.
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“There’s more in the fall because of spring, because birds migrate north, and they have a nice breeding season, and then all the adults and young migrate back down south,” said Blackburn.
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SEE ALSO: Advocates Push For Solutions To Light Pollution In Northern VA
So why do birds choose to migrate at night? Blackburn says it’s a combination of weather patterns being more stable and the stars in the nighttime sky helping birds to navigate. Birds will also get less overheated without sunlight, have less chances of encountering predators and will feed during the day.
“There are many tools that birds have to migrate, but depending on which bird we’re talking about, they will use the position of the stars, which amazingly, means that they have to be able to correlate that to the time of night, because the sky is appearing to rotate,” said Blackburn. “They’re using the moon, and they actually can use the light patterns on the ground below them.”
But while the night sky guides birds, lights around buildings can be a hazard.
“Some of the birds are attracted to the lights, or they’re confused by them, and so they will fly around the lights,” said Blackburn. “Some of them will crash right into the buildings. And some species are more prone to crashing than others, for reasons we don’t really know. But other birds, instead of just crashing into the lights, will fly around in confusion because they’re disoriented.”
There are ways around that. For example, the 9/11 light tribute at Ground Zero where the Twin Towers used to be monitors the birds. When a large amount of birds start to congregate, the lights will be turned off for 15 minutes to allow the birds to leave.
The Northern Virginia Bird Alliance is working on the Lights Out initiative with Dark Sky NOVA, Dark Sky Virginia, Nature Forward, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy, Friends of Dyke Marsh and Friends of Little Hunting Creek on Lights Out for Birds. In Northern Virginia, areas with numerous tall buildings like Tysons and Reston. But Blackburn says smaller buildings and residential neighborhoods can also attract birds by creating a sky glow with light pollution.
“The Lights Out for Birds would also ask residents to reduce their outdoor lighting at night,” said Blackburn.
“And it asks for people to put shades on their windows to keep it’s not just the outside lights that are part of this effect, but also the inside lights too,” added Eileen Kragie, a Vienna resident who founded Dark Sky Friends. Kragie also suggested that residents working in high rises speak to their company or building manager about measures to light pollution.
Blackburn says protecting birds from light pollution is important because of birds’ crucial role in the ecosystem. He pointed to the example of the Mao era in China, where millions of sparrows were killed to stop them from eating grain. That resulted in the insect population spiking and a deadly famine resulting from grain crops failing.
“It’s a demonstration of how important birds are a part of the ecosystem,” said Blackburn. “If you lose your birds, then you’re going to lose other very important things. And let’s add to that, the fact that birds are pretty nice or pretty cool to look at…but just the main thing is, if we’re interfering and doing too much damage to any part of our ecosystem, the rest of it will suffer.”
A kickoff of Lights Out with a free online program is planned on Oct. 9 from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. After that, Blackburn says the groups will turn the focus to making an impact for the spring bird migration season.
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