How to Make Lower Manhattan Less Deadly for Birds
The NYC Bird Alliance (as the organization formerly known as New York City Audubon has been called since 2024) is asking for help in making Downtown less of a killing ground for winged visitors. At the November 17 meeting of the Environmental Protection Committee of Community Board 1, Zak Kaletsch, who oversees advocacy and outreach for the Bird Alliance, noted that the five boroughs of New York City are home to an estimated 25 million birds across more than 350 species.
Millions more birds fly over New York City each spring and fall along a migration corridor known as the Atlantic Flyway, a route connecting winter territory as far south as Latin America to breeding grounds as far north as the Arctic. Bird Alliance research shows that between 90,000 and 230,000 birds are killed in the City each year as they crash into windows during migration. To birds, windows can appear indistinguishable from the sky during both diurnal and nocturnal conditions, and electric lighting at night attracts and disorients them. Bird Alliance data indicate that collisions with windows claim roughly a billion lives annually across the country. (Above, a flicker lies stunned on pavement near Brookfield Place.)
“About one-third of the bird species found in North America pass through New York City each year,” Mr. Kaletsch said. “Millions of birds stop in New York to utilize our green spaces, our pocket parks, and our street trees.”
“Almost 80 percent of these birds are migrating at night,” added Katherine Chen, who handles community science and collision reduction for the Bird Alliance. “In the morning, they get stuck in these areas where they need to rest and refuel and they are susceptible to collisions.”
Ms. Chen cited as an example of a local hazard the annual Tribute in Light that projects powerful luminous beams over Lower Manhattan on the anniversary of September 11, 2001. “A lot of collisions happen in the Downtown area,” she said. Even on nights other than September 11, “Downtown Manhattan is extremely brightly lit. It’s a really important place for change to occur.”
Ms. Chen would like to see building owners in Lower Manhattan make greater use of grids of lightly colored dots on their windows. She cited the Battery Park City ferry terminal, the windows of the Liberty Street pedestrian bridge, and the outdoor glass railings in Liberty Park as locations where “building owners have voluntarily taken steps to put a grid of dots, spaced two inches apart, on their glass. Birds recognize that they won’t be able to fit in those gaps between the dots, and so they don’t fly into the glass.” The grids are barely visible to humans and consist of inexpensive decals, rather than replacement windows.
The Bird Alliance representatives asked CB1 for a resolution in support of Intro 0896, a proposed law now before the City Council that would extend to commercial and industrial buildings a requirement (originally signed into law in 2018 for buildings owned or leased by City government) to dim exterior lights during migration periods.
What to do if you find an injured bird: Approach the bird quietly from behind. Gently put one or two hands over its wings, and put it into a paper bag, cloth tote bag, or box. Whatever you use, the container should be ventilated but the bird should not be able to see out. If you do not have a suitable container on hand, you can pick the bird up and carry it in your hands to a nearby store to ask for a paper bag. Do not attempt to give the bird food or water. Place the container in a dark, quiet place and, as soon as possible, bring it to the Wild Bird Fund at 565 Columbus Avenue (87th Street), open every day from 9am to 7pm. Submit a report of an injured or dead bird to dBird, an online crowd-sourced data collection tool created by the Bird Alliance that tracks local avian deaths and injuries as part of the group’s Project Safe Flight. Submitting a report to dBird takes less than two minutes.