In addition to giving us a sense of the scope of bird mortality in the county as a result of collisions with buildings, the data collected during this campaign should also help us to better understand which bird species migrating over Miami are most likely to collide with buildings, the time of year or time of day when collisions are most likely to occur and the types of building lights or windows that are most likely to result in collisions. We’ll also advocate for legislation such as the Bird-Safe Buildings Act that requires the use of building products that prevent bird collisions.īird collision data collection in Miami-Dade County commenced in Fall, 2021. Other components of this initiative include a campaign to encourage building managers and homeowners within the county to turn off unnecessary lights during the spring and fall bird migration seasons. To get a sense of how many birds are killed in Miami each year by collisions with buildings, Tropical Audubon Society has, as part of our Lights Out Miami program, organized and implemented a bird collision monitoring campaign within Miami-Dade County. This video produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology illustrates the problem. An estimated one billion birds are killed each year in the United States due to collisions with buildings. The bright lights of tall buildings may also disorient birds, forcing them off course or making it more likely that they’ll collide with a building. Migrant songbirds flying at night over brightly lit cities are often unable to use the stars as a navigational aid.
These nocturnal migrants use a variety of navigational aids, including magnetic fields and the stars, to keep them on course. Songbirds typically migrate at night so they can take advantage of cooler temperatures and calmer air as well as avoid being eaten by hawks and other diurnal birds of prey. Millions of songbirds fly over Miami every spring and fall as they migrate between their nesting habitat to the north and their wintering habitat to the south. The Effects of Light Pollution on Migrating Birds
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