When the Lights Go Out, Life Takes Flight
- Lauren Imhof
- 19 hours ago
- 3 min read
As the sun winks behind the horizon, leaving behind hues of gold and coral, a new world awakens. In twilight, insects buzz, birds fly, and stars twinkle above. The sanctity of a dark environment is essential for the biodiversity that thrives in the night, but with an increase of light pollution, our nocturnal friends are at risk. On the eastern shore, light pollution strongly affects our migrating bird population.
Sitting in the Atlantic migration flyway, the eastern shore is a hotspot for migration with over 500 species using this flyway specifically. Audubon’s Bird Migration Explorer tool visualizes these expansive journeys and showcases bird flock locations throughout the year. While they use many senses to find their way, birds use the sun and the stars to navigate to their new nesting grounds. Most birds migrate at night to conserve energy and protect themselves from daytime predators. Traveling by night was simple before humans, but now our light pollution can cause big issues. Bright lights and skyglow can confuse birds causing them to collide into buildings or windows. From only 20 buildings, Lights Out Baltimore found an average of 450 birds killed from collisions each year. Imagine how many birds are affected in the entire city!
To protect birds and all nighttime creatures affected by light pollution, we celebrate International Dark Sky Week. Organized by DarkSky, International Dark Sky week is a global celebration of the night and happens this year April 13th-20th. Communities come together to learn about light pollution, which is when man-made lighting alters natural light levels. Light pollution can include glare from bright outdoor lights, skyglow, and aggressively cluttered lights. In 2016, the World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness found that 80% of the world’s population lives under skyglow. Dark Sky Week encourages communities to decrease their nighttime light usage, which helps them enjoy the night sky with activities like stargazing. Organized Dark Sky week events happen all over the world. Locally, Maryland Park Service is hosting a stargazing night in Janes Island State Park on April 18th.
You don’t have to wait until Dark Sky week to appreciate nighttime wonders. First, you can start by looking at the stars in your backyard. If you find a constellation, you can record your finding on Globe at Night’s website. Globe at Night is an international citizen-science campaign that raises awareness for light pollution with data collected from everyday people. By logging how the sky looked when stargazing, we can track the intensity and spread of pollution. Another option is to take DarkSky’s Outdoor Home Lighting Assessment. This assessment teaches you about outdoor lighting features that are safe for nocturnal creatures and minimize light pollution. It will give you tips and tricks to make your backyard lights more dark sky friendly. Finally, you can check out Audubon’s Lights Out program, which works to convince building managers to turn off excess lights during bird migration months. This national program has many local chapters. The closest chapters to the lower shore are Lights Out Baltimore and Lights Out Wilmington. These groups monitor buildings for hurt or dead birds, and advocate for bird-safe light and building design. For a local example of bird safe buildings, just look at Salisbury University. Earning the title of Highflyer in 2022–the most prestigious status of Maryland Bird Campus designation– Salisbury University’s science building sports dots on some of the windows. These dots help birds quickly recognize the windows and avoid colliding into them.
As cities expand and developments grow, we can’t turn out all the lights, but this week reminds us that a little goes a long way. Just by turning off unnecessary lighting from 11pm-6am, we can help birds safely navigate and decrease our skyglow. This International Dark Week remember our feathered friends, turn off those lights, and join your community for nighttime events that teach us the importance of keeping nighttime dark.
