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NYtimes story 'bout migrants



Hi folks,  (please use capito@hotmail.com for response)

I ilfered this from GAbirds but think it's a good one to circulate. I only 
enclosed part of the story since it went quite long. You can go to their web 
site to read the rest.

(oh... also have had LOTS of Swainsons, Grey-cheeked and YES, ONE SINGING 
BICKNELL'S THRUSH on the Savannah River Site in New Ellenton, SC. Also a 
latre B-t Blue, lots of Blackpolls and a R-b Grosbeak... this time last year 
was good for migrant thrushes here too.

cheers, Paul Champlin)

--COPY from NY Times.com--

City Lights, a Siren's Song for Birds, Are Dimmed

By PAM BELLUCK

CHICAGO, May 15 - The bejeweled nighttime skyline of the city is sparkling a 
little less this spring.

The lights on the roof of the giant Sears Tower have gone dark at night. So 
has the distinctive crown of light atop the John Hancock Center, the 
gracefully muscular skyscraper on Michigan Avenue, Chicago's Champs-Élysées. 
And such prominent architectural icons as
the ornate Wrigley Building and the gothic Tribune Tower have dimmed their 
lights, too.

The point is to attract less attention at night - not from people, but from 
birds. From the song sparrow to the hermit thrush to the Baltimore oriole, 
birds migrating from the south in the spring and from the north in the fall 
are attracted by the lights of buildings, apparently confusing a light bulb 
with the stars that they navigate by. And too often, ornithologists say, the 
birds smash into the windows and wind up dead or seriously injured.

"We think several hundred thousand birds a year die from striking buildings 
in Chicago," said Suzanne Malek, deputy commissioner of natural resources 
with the Chicago Department of the Environment. Last fall, the city started 
a Lights Out program, asking building
owners to kill their ornamental lights during migration season, roughly 
April to May and September to October. And so far, she said, about 18 or 19 
have complied.

It is not just a Chicago problem, ornithologists point out. Douglas F. 
Stotz, a conservation ecologist at the Field Museum here, said scientists 
estimate that "100 million birds a year kill themselves on man-made 
structures

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