When buildings use a lot of exterior lighting, it disorients the birds and causes them to crash. The spring lights out period is March 15-May 31.Light pollution has an outsized impact on migrating birds. The fall lights out period is September 10-November 30. Bird-friendly skies are friendlier for people, too. In doing so, you will save money and reduce our city’s use of fossil fuels.

Turn out the lights and give the more than 150 species of birds that pass through Greensboro the dark skies they need to fly safely. The strategy is simple: by convincing building owners and managers to turn off excess lighting during the months migrating birds are flying overhead, we help to provide them safe passage between their nesting and wintering grounds. The Solution: Audubon’s Lights Out program is a national effort to reduce this problem.

This problem is not limited to large cities recent surveys of 13 downtown Winston-Salem buildings, Audubon volunteers found 50 dead and injured birds in a single month during fall migration. Fewer than ten percent of the birds that collided with buildings were year-round residents such as Northern Cardinals and Eastern Towhees. An estimated 300 million to 1 billion birds die each year from collisions with glass on buildings, from skyscrapers to homes. Just one building can cause major problems for birds in the area within one week in 2017, nearly 400 passerines (warblers, grosbeaks, etc.) were caught in the floodlights of a 32-story Texas skyscraper and killed via window collisions. Most collision victims are migratory birds – warblers, thrushes and vireos – beloved for their bright colors and beautiful songs. Many species are affected, including priority species-those that have been identified as most in need of and most likely to benefit from our help- such as hummingbirds, thrushes, and warblers. This exhaustion can then leave them vulnerable to other urban threats. Disoriented birds also expend a lot of energy while flying around and calling out in confusion. However, as they pass over big cities along their way, they can become disoriented by bright artificial lights and skyglow, often causing them to collide with buildings or windows. The majority of them fly at night, using the moon and stars to navigate. Every spring and fall, millions of birds journey along the Atlantic Flyway north to their breeding grounds and back south to their wintering grounds.

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