More than a thousand birds died on Thursday when they flew into a conference center in the American city of Chicago. This was reported by the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’. Experts say the largely glass building is invisible to the animals that are currently flying south en masse to spend the winter.
A few days later, volunteers are still finding dead animals in a nearly two-and-a-half-mile radius around McCormick Place, the largest convention center in the United States. These include Tennessee Warblers, Hermit Thrushes and other species of songbirds that crashed into the building. Bird conservationists expect that many more dead birds will be found in the area.
According to the experts the British newspaper spoke to, the animals were on their way from Canada to Central and South America to spend the winter, but ended up in the city of Chicago due to weather conditions and became disoriented by light pollution and buildings with large glass windows. Large windows in particular are very dangerous for birds: they do not recognize the mirror effect of windows. While people look at a window of a building and see the trees on the street reflected in it, for example, birds literally see trees.
A study by the renowned Smithsonian institute stated in 2014 that around 600 million birds die every year by flying into windows in the US. Bird conservationists estimate the actual number is closer to a billion.
An estimated one and a half million birds flew over the North American city from Wednesday to Thursday, which is on the route of the annual bird migration. That is why various measures have been taken by the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois to reduce the number of fatal accidents involving birds.
Because light pollution is a major factor, Chicago has a “Lights Out Program,” which voluntarily dims or turns off building lights at night. Research conducted in 2021 – at the conference center that the birds flew into this week – shows that dimming half the lights can lead to as many as eleven times fewer collisions. The conference center also participates in this program, but due to activities in the building, the lights were not (always) dimmed.
In addition to the voluntary light reduction program, there are also other ways to reduce the number of collisions. Applying dots or patterns to windows can limit the aforementioned mirror effect, allowing birds to better judge whether there is a safe passage.
In 2020, a municipal regulation was introduced requiring ‘bird-friendly design’ of new buildings, but it is not yet in force. Also at the state level, a law was passed in 2021 requiring bird-friendly designs for renovation and new construction of government buildings in Illinois.
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