Charlotte is going to the birds — specifically, those that migrate over Mecklenburg County at night.
City Council member Kimberly Owens proclaimed in Monday’s City Council meeting that the spring and fall seasons will now be recognized as “Bird Safe Awareness Months,” encouraging residents and businesses to turn out nonessential lights between 11 p.m. and 6 p.m. while birds migrate overhead.
“Eighty percent of birds migrate at night. So that's why we're trying to draw attention to dimming the lights or turning lights off,” said Mary Claire Wall, a volunteer with Wing Haven Bird Sanctuary.
The two migration seasons run from March through May and September through November. During these periods, nocturnal flyovers pick up dramatically. Monday night, after the proclamation, over 3 million birds flew over Mecklenburg County, according to Birdcast’s migration dashboard. The application pulls radar data from weather stations across the U.S. to track birds migrating across the country. Last night, avian traffic peaked at nearly half a million birds around 11 p.m., but species are regularly migrating from dusk to dawn in the fall.
Wall partnered with Mecklenburg Audubon to write the proclamation with city councilmember Kimberly Owens. She said that bright, upward facing lights confuse their biological navigation systems. Up to a billion birds die from colliding with buildings in the United States annually.
“It gets very disorienting to them, and they don't know where they're going,” Wall said. “So they start flying around in circles. They can fly into buildings.”
Instead of leaving lights blazing, residents and businesses can use warm, downward facing lights controlled by timers or motion sensors. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists additional recommendations, such as closing curtains, avoiding blue lights and installing dimmers.
“The birds are in crisis, and this is a little thing that we can do in Charlotte to help them survive migration,” Wall said.
