Dimming lights can help birds migrate safely this fall

Oct. 8—EMPIRE — Anthropomorphism — assigning human characteristics to animals — is a big nope in the scientific world, akin to, as one scholar writes, "bringing back the bathwater as we rescue the baby."

Most of us aren't scientists, though, so where's the harm in caring about, say, an endangered bird, the piping plover, simply because they're adorable?

Big dark eyes, compact body, distinctive black markings, hopping at the shoreline on feet the color of a baby carrot.

"They are cute," agrees Erica Adams, piping plover coordinator at Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Plovers are a migrating bird and the dunes are the summertime home of about 74 nesting pairs that migrate in August to wintering grounds in the Carolinas, Georgia, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

Oct. 8 is World Migratory Bird Day — an annual global effort to raise awareness about the need for the conservation of birds and their habitats.

This year's theme is light pollution, a significant threat to migratory birds, ornithologists say, causing disorientation when they fly at night, which can lead them off course or worse.

Collisions with buildings, for example, or a dangerous scramble to their internal clocks and sense of direction.

The anthropomorphisers — OK, so that's a made-up word for humans — can help by dimming the lights of commercial buildings in spring and fall; by setting timers to turn lights on only when needed; by using shades and curtains to prevent indoor light from shining outside; and by reducing outdoor lighting on ships and floating oil and gas installations, according to studies of migratory species.

Adams said while the Michigan plovers have already migrated, the season is underway for other migratory Upper Midwest and Canadian birds now headed south, like geese, swans and birds of prey.

"There's been a big raptor migration and by turning your lights off, you're doing a very small part helping these birds get down to their wintering grounds," Adams said.

For those bird enthusiasts curious about what, or who, is flying overhead this very night, there's an app for that.

* BirdCast's website lets users in the U.S. type a state or county into a search box and, voila, bird extravaganza.

Friday evening in Leelanau County, for example, while you were playing euchre at home with pals or having a glass of local riesling at 45 North, 97,000 birds were in flight over your head, average speed 39 miles per hour, average altitude 900 feet.

This ability to connect with bird travel in real time even impresses the scientists.

"I am truly amazed at the work that is being done in the ornithology field to communicate this information to the masses," Adams said. "I use those apps all the time."

Overnight from Thursday at 7:20 p.m. to Friday morning, about 921,800 birds crossed Leelanau County, according to data accessed by BirdCast.

Another website, Aeroecolab.com, also gives continental estimates of bird migration and offers "lights out" alerts by state when migratory numbers are expected to be particularly high.

Sunday night, for example, would be a good time for Michiganders to dim their lights. The Great Lakes state will have as many as 10.2 million birds passing through, a map at Aeroecolab shows.

Numbers like those make it difficult to focus on one bird, but that's where the work of banding and tracking comes in.

A few weeks ago, Adams said she got an update on OF,bG:X,L/O.L, a plover chick hatched from an egg cared for in a brooder, after the nest was abandoned due to "predation" because a hungry animal or bird ate one of the parents.

The chick left Sleeping Bear Dunes on July 26 and was recently sighted in Georgia.

Adams knows it was OF,bG:X,L/O/L, because that plover has been banded with an orange flag, a light blue band, a dark green band on its left leg and a split black/orange/black band on its right leg.

The bird will be tracked over its lifetime by scientists like Adams, who depend on in-person sightings, and not computer tracking, to keep track of OF,bG:X,L/O/L.

Or, "Big LOL" for short.

"We know where Big LOL forages and migrates to, and all the other things they do in between, because of this individually identifiable band combination," Adams said.

A cute name for a cute bird.