Lights Out Baltimore

I mentioned before that I am a volunteer for Lights Out Baltimore. We are all members of the Baltimore Bird Club and this particular work is to monitor bird strikes into buildings in downtown Baltimore. It is a reasonably scientific tracking method whereby we follow a route at a prescribed time early in the morning. We monitor bird activity primarily for three things:

-dead birds that have flown into buildings
-injured birds who need attention
-disoriented birds that can generally be coaxed out of their “entrapment” and fly to freedom.

We do recording of the dead and injured birds indicating their state, location and species. The dead ones are placed in a sandwich bag with the vitals that we collect. The injured ones are delicately placed in paper bag. We were trained as to the proper method. Their logistics are also recorded.

At some point depending on the quantity of injured birds and the point of the route we are at, one of the team members will take the bird(s) to a rescue clinic out in the country. We have had a decent success with bird revival using this method. We have over worked our veterinary staff (I am told that while highly trained and very skillful she lacks true veterinary qualifications).

The dead birds get frozen and ultimately are turned over to scientists who can use the carcasses for a variety of experimental work. We have plenty of them too. There are a lot of bird strikes but we expect it to be a number that drops.

We have two critical things in our favor. The economy is such that businesses are turning out their lights at night. Not so long ago the city was aglow as all the tall buildings kept many lights on. In made for spectacular urbanscape imagery but the lights became a distraction to the birds in migratory flight. Obviously the distraction is often deadly. I have learned from various readings that part of the migration methodology includes stars and the moon. Lit buildings can be confused for stars and apparently birds do not recognize glass.

Secondly, we form sort of an army of informers and educators. We have made our presence highly visible downtown and have become comfortable with the various security staffs who now encourage us, ask questions about what they can do and occasionally even point out compromised birds or provided us with ones that have died as a result of strikes.

Here is the second part of this story. We birders use a concept of “Life” birds meaning our first sighting of a species. Ironically for me too many of my Life birds occur after they are dead. That was the case of the Kentucky Warbler that graces this web update. It is such a beautiful little bird and it met its end only seconds prior to me finding it.

We are making headway and in my view providing a valuable service. More and more people are interested in our activities and are coming to understand a phenomenon that is new to them. We are providing scientists with fuel for the many research projects that can use our carcasses to further their investigations.

It’s all good.