Lighting Confuses Animals Nearly 1,000 Birds Die in One Night in a Chicago Window
October 7, 2023, 10:35 am Listen to the article
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Confused birds crashing into windows and dying happen every day around the world. What’s extraordinary, though, is what workers at a Chicago convention center discovered Thursday morning: The floor in front of the window is littered with dead birds.
In just one night, almost 1,000 birds died in the window of a building in Chicago. As US media reported, employees at the McCormick Place Lakeside Center found the dead animals on Thursday morning. The street in front of the building, which houses a conference center, was said to be littered with carcasses.
“It was like a carpet of dead birds outside the windows,” David Willard, a retired bird expert at the Chicago Field Museum, told the Associated Press. Willard says he has been researching the area around the convention center on the shores of Lake Michigan for 40 years. “On normal nights, anywhere from zero to 15 birds die,” he said. Until now, he has never noticed a bird death of this magnitude.
Bird experts studied the phenomenon and counted exactly 964 dead birds from 33 different species. The reason for the high number of dead birds is a combination of several factors: A large number of animals are currently migrating south. On the night in question, weather conditions were unfavorable: shortly before dusk, rain caused migratory birds to fly lower.
Additionally, conservationists blame the mass deaths on the harsh nighttime lighting from the McCormick Place Lakeside Center’s large window. Birds often orient themselves by the stars when traveling south. The bright lights confused the animals. If they don’t hit the glass front and die, they circle around the lights for hours and die of exhaustion, bird experts explain in US media.