It’s a cool fall night in Richmond. Most people have gone home or are gathered inside restaurants and venues. But lights still glow in empty offices, street lamps flicker over sidewalks and colorful billboards blare in the darkness. They’re seemingly harmless, but over the next few hours, could have devastating effects that can quietly alter and destroy an essential part of our ecosystem.
Artificial lights are a siren song for birds. Welcoming from far away but deadly once approached as they get trapped in a neverending brightness often meeting their end crashing into a window or overexerting themselves flying.
It’s a problem that occurs year-round, especially during migration. But there are efforts to combat this, like Lights Out Richmond.
A national effort by the Audubon Society, Lights Out attempts to aid migrating birds by encouraging businesses and homeowners to reduce (and ideally eliminate) non-essential artificial lights. This is especially so around 10 p.m. to dawn (the prime traveling time for many of these avians) during key migration periods starting from early March to late May and mid-August through November.
“For birds and many other animals, light is a primary cue – one that drives a lot of behaviors and physical functions,” says Dr. Stephen Ferguson, a physiobehavioral ecologist teaching at the University of Richmond. “That difference between dark and light helps synchronize lots of things.”
When disrupted, a bird’s daily melatonin cycle (which regulates their sleep) and corticosterone (which controls stress and metabolism) are irked. “When migration happens, they can get restless at night and start to move toward things,” says Ferguson. “They see great big city lights and move toward that general area.”
One of the biggest Richmond hotspots is the downtown zone. Viewing a light pollution map, this urban section is a vibrant reddish orange indicating strong artificial light usage.
Much of these glows are created thanks to LEDs and fluorescents – those which usually are the most troublesome. “These white lights have kind of been more problematic because they are what we call broad spectrum,” says Ferguson. “They have lots of different wavelengths.”
Birds can see a slightly wider spectrum and are more sensitive to an ultraviolet range. “They’re not necessarily attracted [to artificial light] except at certain times,” says Ferguson. “A lot of migration happens at night. Birds, like any animals, are sensitive to different lights at different times.”
But the lights themselves aren’t necessarily the problem. They’re just an enticement. It’s when birds get closer to them resulting in confusion and excessive energy usage that should instead be saved for their migration travels.
“Being attracted to light itself is just a general attraction that pulls them into other dangers,” says Ferguson. “For example, if you go downtown and walk around under big glass buildings it’s almost guaranteed that [any dead] birds have flown into windows at night.”
Because of this, it’s not uncommon to find unusual victims crumpled or injured on the ground in the morning.
“A lot of people, especially in the city, will see birds you don’t typically expect to find,” says Ferguson in regards to a dead or injured bird. “Something like the American woodcock, a very distinctive looking bird, you’ll not typically see in downtown so it piques a lot of interest.”
Virginia is situated within the Atlantic Flyway which extends from Greenland and upper eastern Canada down the the United States’ eastern coastline to the Caribbean and South America. Around 500 bird species, like warblers and wood thrushes, are estimated to travel this route during their spring and fall migrations.
The journey is filled with obstacles but those that can be lessened by simply turning off non-essential night lights, installing bird-safe glass or just sticking a decal on a window to prevent collisions. It’s not only a win for birds, but for humans who can save a little on their power bill at the same time.
For those wanting to assist or learn more, the Richmond Audubon Society is always looking for volunteers to help further their mission to ensure the area is a bird-friendly destination. Those interested can reach out to the group for more information.
“Birds eat pests [and] are part of a healthy park system and healthy forest. We are seeing lots and lots of things knocking birds down, like invasive species and insect population collapse,” says Ferguson. “We have enough challenges for birds to deal with.”
