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Fall is here and that means many of our feathered friends are headed south. It also means that a new migration Rescue & Recovery season has begun. This morning Arthur and I are walking our route to look for fallen injured or dead birds that have struck buildings in Chicago during the night and early morning. This is our second week volunteering for R&R this fall, following our first season during last spring’s migration. During these weeks, I’d like to highlight some of the perils birds face on their migration by sharing a website or information about migratory birds.

Last week, twin columns of light shone above the former site of the World Trade Center in New York. The Tribute in Light attracted an estimated 10,000 birds who were in the midst of migration. The phenomenon resulted from a sort of perfect storm of conditions. The recent poor weather for migration changed on the night of September 11, 2010, and a large amount of birds who had been waiting out bad weather were suddenly on the move. Some of the birds’ normal methods of navigation were obscured: there was just a sliver of new moon and an overcast sky blocked the stars. The birds became confused by the huge beams of light and ended up flying in circles. You can see them in the video below. Note that the video will start at 0:35, which is shortly before the birds are first seen in the clip.

When the lights were turned off for 20 minutes, the birds moved on. But when the lights were turned back on, more birds became confused and trapped in the light. You can read more about the birds caught by the Tribute in Light here.

This sort of problem is not limited to big light beams as seen with the Tribute in Light. Blog readers know that big buildings with brightly-lit windows cause similar problems.

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This morning Arthur and I are walking our Rescue & Recovery route to look for fallen injured or dead birds that have struck buildings in Chicago during the night and early morning. This is our tenth week volunteering for R&R this spring. During these weeks, I’d like to highlight some of the perils birds face on their migration by sharing a website or information about migratory birds.

As the height of migration through the Chicago area winds down, this week I’m sharing an article on bird-strike progress being made in Toronto: In birds vs. buildings, feathered friends gain ground. The article appears in the real estate column of the online paper, so there is a lot of focus on construction issues and how they pertain to bird strikes on buildings.

In a novel move this spring, environmental groups Ontario Nature and Ecojustice initiated a private legal action under the Ontario Environmental Protection Act and the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act against Menkes Developments Ltd., a Toronto-based commercial building and management firm. The legal tactic has not been used before in Ontario, Ecojustice lawyer Albert Koehl says.

At issue is bird strikes at Consilium Place, a Scarborough office complex that is clad completely in mirrored glass. FLAP estimates more than 7,000 dead birds have been recovered there since 2000.

Read the entire article here.

Speaking of migration, and on less grim note, it was a true pleasure to bird in northwest Ohio earlier this month, where we spent a lot of time at the Magee Marsh boardwalk. A sign at the start of the trail tantalizes with images of warblers. While some species stay and breed at the marsh, many use the area as a stopover on their continuing migration northward.

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Last week we were out of town on Thursday, so early this morning Arthur and I walked our Rescue & Recovery route for the ninth time this season. For this migration awareness post I would just like to share a bit about what it’s like to check the streets of downtown Chicago for injured birds now that we’ve had some more experience.

Arthur and I drive downtown, usually leaving home some time around 4am. The dark streets are deserted close to home, but by 5am the expressway into downtown is surprisingly busy. During the morning we park the car in several places and then check the surrounding streets. Arthur and I split up, mostly, to cover as much ground as possible. By the time we arrive at our first parking spot, it’s already twilight. We’re trying to beat the gulls and other predators, and pedestrians.

Walking the dark streets, our eyes play tricks on us. But even in daylight, a crumpled napkin is a streaky sparrow laying on its side. A fallen flower bud is a stunned warbler. We approach every object out of place on the street, courtyard, or sidewalk, to check if it is a bird in trouble.

During one of our first weeks, I picked up a dead American Woodcock. It was laying about ten feet out from the building it struck, and as I approached it, it seemed impossibly huge. Then, my eyes told me an old shoe was laying on the ground.

Not all creatures we come across are birds. Rats scurry along alleyways. Bunnies hop in tiny gardens. Earlier this season, we found three bats, all laying around one building. Those we cannot approach. Several times we have found dragonflies laying on curbs or next to buildings. Are they also window-strike victims? We think so.

We find birds huddled close to buildings, or in the middle of the street. This morning I walked by a dark male American Redstart, laying in the middle of an alley, as I checked the sides of the buildings. I noticed the tiny bird as I retraced my steps back to the car. Once we saw a large bird in the middle of the road. A thrush, we first thought. But the large dark bird was a Brown Thrasher, stunned, uncharacteristically quiet and still in the street.

We need to remain quiet around our patients, but when picking up a salvage bird, I can’t help but apologize to it.

When we finish with our route, we check in with the other Thursday volunteers. All of the rescues and salvages are brought to triage in the city. Patients are later transported out of the city, for further care or immediate release. The salvage birds are brought to the Field Museum. On a good day, we have more rescues than salvages. For us, today was not a good day.

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This morning Arthur and I are walking our Rescue & Recovery route to look for fallen injured or dead birds that have struck buildings in Chicago during the night and early morning. This is our eighth week volunteering for R&R this spring. During these weeks, I’d like to highlight some of the perils birds face on their migration by sharing a website or information about migratory birds.

I had big plans to write up something on International Migratory Bird Day, which is celebrated each year on the second Saturday in May, but I’m so bummed about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster — which also happens to be the big story in migration right now. So here are a few things about the situation that pertain to migratory birds.

First, if you haven’t read Nathan’s commentary Complete and Utter Disaster from last week, go read it now.

There’s an excellent roundup of pertinent links in this Round Robin post from Cornell: Bad Place, Bad Timing for an Oil Spill

The first oil-coated bird to be treated was a Northern Gannet picked up late last week. The second bird, a Brown Pelican, was picked up on Tuesday. Pelicans dive into the water for their food so are expected to be hit hard by the disaster. These two birds are just the first ones; many more won’t ever even be found by rescuers.

To keep up with bird-related oil spill news, the Audubon Magazine Blog is an excellent resource. Don’t miss these recent posts: Oil Spill Answers from Bird Conservation Expert on the Ground in Louisiana; FAQ: How Oil-Covered Birds Are Cleaned; and from late yesterday, Oil Reaches First Important Bird Area.

We saw these Northern Gannets in a recovery enclosure at Ecomare in 2008.

Share the birds, share the love!

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This morning Arthur and I are walking our Rescue & Recovery route to look for fallen injured or dead birds that have struck buildings in Chicago during the night and early morning. This is our seventh week volunteering for R&R this spring. During these weeks, I’d like to highlight migration topics by sharing a website or information about migratory birds.

Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley recently introduced HR 4797, a bill that calls for new government construction to incorporate bird-safe building practices. According to the American Bird Conservancy, the Federal Bird-Safe Buildings Act of 2010 “will absolutely save the lives of millions of birds that mistake objects reflected in window glass, such as habitat and sky, as real.”

As of today the bill is in the first legislative steps. As of March 9th it has been referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. You can easily write to your U.S. Representative in Congress via this action link to let him or her know you support the bill.

Hermit Thrush, 4-2010, PA by Kelly Colgan Azar, on Flickr

In October 2009, Toronto became the first city to mandate bird-friendly building construction. The Toronto Green Standard legislation includes Bird-Friendly Development Guidelines (BFDG), “designed to eliminate migratory bird collisions with buildings both at night and in the daytime.” I would be thrilled if the U.S. government did the same and passed HR 4797.

If you’d like to learn more about bird-safe building practices, the New York Audubon Society has a comprehensive publication entitled Bird-Safe Building Guidelines. Several case studies are included to show practical examples of the guidelines at work in the real world.

Share the birds, share the love!

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