With the end of another fall bird migration season in sight comes the end also of another annual period of mass local killings among feathered animals simply trying to pass through the area.
“Windsor and Detroit are along some major migratory routes — thousands of birds can die in a single night,” said ornithologist Dan Mennill.
“Birds hitting windows is a common problem in every city this time of year,” Mennill, a University of Windsor biology professor, told the Star Wednesday.
Of the five billion birds who hit the southbound migration routes each fall across North America, Environment Canada estimates about 42 million will die in Canada, smashing against windows illuminated by interior lights.
“That’s a good estimate,” said Mennill. “There’s a huge number that fly at night, they do that to avoid hawks.”
Migratory birds also use the light of the stars to navigate by night. Artificial light — whether a row of skyscraper windows high above the street or a home’s backyard porch light down low — can “short-circuit their brains — they’re attracted to them,” he said.
Given its strategic geographic location, huge numbers of migratory birds funnel through Windsor and Detroit each spring and fall, heading to either summer breeding grounds in the north or warm overwintering spots in the south.
“Oh, yeah, we can always tell when it’s migration season,” Ellen Hedges, animal care manager with Erie Wildlife Rescue in Windsor, told the Star.
“Right now, the numbers are pretty high,” she said Wednesday, describing the steady fall flow of injured wild birds being brought in or being housed at the volunteer-run organization’s rescue centre.
“We do have successes … but the survivability is kind of low,” Hedges said. Last week on the same day, an injured golden-crowned kinglet, found outside someone’s front door, was brought in, while a recovered downy woodpecker was sent back on its way.
“One of the biggest things you can do to help is turn out your lights (when not needed), that really helps,” said Hedges.
Asked why the occupant of a single-home or an apartment dweller should bother switching off their lights when entire blocks of empty skyscrapers light up the urban skies at night, both Hedges and Mennill say every light bulb counts, especially along important bird migration routes.
“Every window makes a difference, if it’s a window that kills a bird,” said Mennill. Seen from across the river, Detroit’s skyline may light up the night, “but that doesn’t let us off the hook,” he said.
If you save one bird, isn’t that enough?
“We did a study in Essex County that showed even a small amount of light on a porch changing the behaviour of birds,” said Mennill. He has a local research group that studies how birds use lights as (sometimes deadly) “navigational cues.”
Added Hedges: “One light, one bird — if you save one bird, isn’t that enough?”
Ideally, say the bird lovers, decals on the outside of windows — like the bird-friendly art recently attached to a University of Windsor campus building — can help warn away the feathered migrants.
“Birds don’t understand windows … they see a continuous space to fly,” said Mennill.
Peak local bird migration seasons are September and October in the fall and April and May in the spring. Mennill said more birds are en route in the fall.
A great source for all things birds and buildings is FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program) Canada’s website, flap.org.
If you find an injured bird in the Windsor area, you can call Erie Wildlife Rescue at 519-735-3919 (same number if you’d like to volunteer or make a donation). EWR’s phone is monitored 365 days a year.
Outside of Windsor, the province keeps an online list of authorized wildlife rehabilitators, and ontariowildlife.ca lists a menagerie of wild animals that might need your help.
Hedges urges quick action but patience in trying to help injured wild birds. If you can, place it in a warm, dark box; close it, put in a quiet place, and don’t try to feed or give the bird water. One suggestion for a heating source — put a closed jar of hot water in the box.
Mennill said he knows of groups of volunteers in Chicago who scour the early-morning sidewalks and collect injured birds.
While a lit-up skyscraper might be a mass killer of migratory birds, however, Mennill said there’s a different top killer of birds.
“Cats are a much bigger problem, I’m afraid — that’s our bigger problem to solve,” he said.