The stunned birds are lucky to have humans on the lookout. “We found an oven bird, a catbird, a thrush, and a white throated sparrow that were alive, and a catbird that was deceased,” he said. Jim Nemets, a bird rescue volunteer, had a busy day. They're fooled by the reflections in the mirror-like glass, he said, and, "they hit the building.”Ĭheryl Langguth, another Lights Out Cleveland volunteer, said last fall, "I watched six birds hit the wall at once.” Cleveland's wild bird hospital Nicholls describes tired birds descending at dawn to rest before the big push over the lake, feeding in trees along the building's north side. On any given day during migration, around half the bird strikes Nicholls' team finds are at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, he said. Lights Out Cleveland is part of a national movement urging building owners to dim outdoor lighting and to raise awareness of the hazards of reflective glass. Migrating birds flying at night are drawn to bright lights, and, confused, they can strike buildings or exhaust themselves flying in circles. This bird survived the collision, but more than 10,000 dead birds have been collected since the group's founding.įor eons, the Cuyahoga Valley, with its lush vegetation and ample supply of bugs, has been an essential flyway for birds heading north.īut the mouth of the Cuyahoga, once a major stopping point for birds, now presents a gauntlet of glittering glass towers. The rescue group has been gathering data on dead and injured birds since 2017. Ideastream Public Media Lights Out Cleveland founder Tim Jasinski holds a tiny, blue winged warbler stunned after colliding with a building in Downtown Cleveland. Many choose to land and rest on the southern shore before continuing, a pattern that makes Northern Ohio one of the world's best bird watching locations in the spring. It showed that on a night in mid May, more than a half million birds passed over the FieldHouse, taking advantage of the clear weather and favorable winds to make the 50 mile push over Lake Erie. The BirdCast app run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology uses radar to track avian migration patterns. Nicholls is stationed here “because this is the worst building in town,” he said.įor birds, it's the deadliest building. Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, home of Cleveland’s NBA franchise, whose three stories of gleaming glass stretches two eye-catching city blocks. It had just arrived after a 2,000 mile flight from wintering grounds in Central America, only to smash into a building in Downtown Cleveland. The flycatcher, a tiny, greenish-gray bird, wasn't moving anymore. "It hit hard and was twitching when I put it in the bag." “This one is not in good shape," he said, opening a brown paper bag to reveal an early find. Ideastream Public Media Lights Out volunteer Jim Nemets holds a dead catbird who collided with a building in Downtown Cleveland during the spring migration.
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