Turn Your Lights Out to Protect Migratory Birds

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Lights Out Philly. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker discovered useless by Arch Avenue Presbyterian Church adjoining to the Comcast Constructing.

In October 2020, as much as 1,500 birds collided with brightly illuminated skyscrapers in Philadelphia over a single night time. It was the peak of migration season, and useless birds lined the streets within the early morning hours. Some had been discovered injured. Now, Lights Out, a brand new brief movie by the photographer and filmmaker Mike Fernandez, follows Keith Russell, the Program Supervisor for City Conservation at Audubon Pennsylvania, and Stephen Maciejewski, a volunteer on the Mid-Atlantic Audubon, as they race to guard the town’s birds.

Russell and Maciejewski monitor injured and useless birds in downtown Philadelphia is a part of Hen Protected Philly, a collaboration between the Academy of Pure Sciences of Drexel College, Audubon Mid-Atlantic, Delaware Valley Ornithological Membership, the Nationwide Audubon Society, Valley Forge Audubon Society, and Wyncote Audubon Society. Many of those preventable deaths and accidents are attributable to constructing collisions, with the birds being disorientation by reflections and vibrant lights.

In the course of the spring and fall migratory seasons, Hen Protected Philly encourages the town to show off or block out their lights as a part of a voluntary program known as Lights Out. Constructing house owners, tenants, residents, and companies are all welcome to take part. From 5:30 PM to eight:00 AM, Russell and Maciejewski may be discovered across the metropolis, checking buildings for attainable collisions.

In circumstances the place the birds are alive, they bring about them to rehabilitation for care and restoration. The our bodies of birds who’ve died go to the Academy of Pure Sciences, the place they’ll then be a part of the scientific assortment of the ornithology division. The data surrounding their lives and deaths will proceed to be studied for years in hopes of defending future generations of birds.

As much as a billion birds are killed yearly in the US on account of constructing collisions. The work being executed by Russell, Maciejewski, and the Hen Protected Philly staff gives a possible path ahead. Turning out our blocking our lights at night time is one easy factor we are able to all do to forestall mass collision occasions sooner or later, whether or not we stay or work in a skyscraper or a single-story constructing.

In Philadelphia, Lights Out is occurring now and runs via November fifteenth, 2023.