How Charlotte Ranks Among Most Dangerous For Migrating Birds

CHARLOTTE, NC — Spring is usually a good season for birds as those that migrated south for the winter return home. But a new study shows our singing, feathery friends might want to bypass certain cities this year. Fortunately, Charlotte is not one of them.

That’s according to a new study by researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who ranked the Charlotte metro area the 29th most dangerous place in the county for birds when it comes light pollution and geography. The authors looked at 125 cities and their findings were published this month in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

While you might’ve seen a dead bird on the ground at some point in Charlotte, the number nationwide that are killed just from building collisions is a staggering 600 million every year. That’s nearly double the total number of Americans.

Here are the 10 most dangerous metros for migrating birds in the spring:

1. Chicago, IL
2. Houston, TX
3. Dallas, TX
4. Los Angeles, CA
5. St. Louis, MO
6. Minneapolis, MN
7. Kansas City, MO
8. New York, NY
9. Atlanta, GA
10. San Antonio, TX

Billions of birds travel through the central United States between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachians during spring migration, the authors said, and cities in the direct line of flight tend to be the most dangerous this time of year. Migration is typically heaviest during the span of just a few days. Major light-polluting cities can expect 50 percent of migrating birds to fly by over the span of just seven nights in a season.

"Chicago, Houston, and Dallas are uniquely positioned in the heart of North America’s most trafficked aerial corridors. This, in combination with being some of the largest cities in the U.S., make them a serious threat to the passage of migrants, regardless of season," lead author Kyle Horton, a Rose Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell Lab, said in a release.

Light pollution refers to artificial light, either directly or indirectly, into the natural environment, according to the National Parks Service. It exists in two forms: sky glow and glare. Sky glow is the brightening of the night sky from light caused by humans that gets scattered in the atmosphere. Glare is the direct shining of light.

Studies suggest light pollution has increased in North America about 6 percent every year from 1947 to 2000. And it’s increasing across the globe. Click here to pull up an interactive map of light pollution nationwide.

Cecilia Nilsson, study co-author who is also a Rose Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cornell Lab, said knowledge of migration patterns should allow for concentrated conservation efforts in the cities that need them most.

"For example, Houston Audubon uses migration forecasts from the Lab's BirdCast program to run 'lights out' warnings on nights when large migratory movements are expected over the city,” said Nilsson.

Homeowners and business-owners can help by turning the lights off when they aren’t needed.

"It's a large-scale issue, but acting even at the very local level to reduce lighting can make a difference,” said Horton. “While we’re hopeful that major reductions in light pollution at the city level are on the horizon, we’re excited that even small-scale actions can make a big difference.”

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.