|
|
A Moving -- and Safe -- Tribute in Light
Volunteers Monitor the 2009 Tribute in Lights. Foul weather makes for a slow night for migrating birds.
This September 11, a Tribute in Light took place in lower Manhattan, as it has every year since the attack on the World Trade Center. Two immense beams of light stretched skyward through the night, a luminous tracing of the towers that once were. For many New Yorkers, these twin towers of light are an evocative, poignant memorial to the thousands of precious lives lost on that terrible day. What most do not know, however, is that NYC Audubon and the Tribute’s organizers have continuously worked together to mitigate a possible danger to some of New York’s most vulnerable and largely unseen visitors: night-traveling migrants.
According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Andrew Farnsworth, over the past century scientists have repeatedly documented the dangerous appeal of artificial lighting for migrating birds. The Tribute in Light is thus a serious potential hazard, particularly on nights when the moon and stars are obscured due to moon phase and/or heavy cloud cover. In 2004 just such conditions occurred, in what NYC Audubon director of conservation Susan Elbin describes as a “perfect storm” designed to draw birds in. That year, multiple observers counted thousands of birds fluttering in the light columns, seemingly unable to break away—and in danger of depleting crucial fat reserves needed to carry them to their southern wintering grounds. Since that time, NYC Audubon and the Municipal Arts Society (MAS), which has organized the tribute with support from the NYC Mayor’s Office, have designed a plan in the event such a phenomenon recurs.
The weather report for September 11, 2009 was auspicious for birds, if not for our intrepid volunteer monitors... Rain and dense cloud cover were in store for the whole night, making a migration event unlikely. Fortunately for the birds, the weather forecast held true, and fewer than a dozen birds were recorded during sample scans taken by volunteers every twenty minutes from 8pm on the 11th until 6am on the 12th. Eighteen volunteers braved the drizzle and downpours to conduct scans, and hope that the storm would not have surprised any birds. As in prior years, peek numbers (just 2 birds in a single scan, as compared to over 250 in 2008) occured between 2am and 4am, which is consistent with NYC Audubon's findings that migration over NYC peaks after midnight. The Powdermill Nature Reserve, in Western Pennsylvania, also reported that while the night of September 11 was a big night for migration in many areas, the Eastern seaboard was quiet.
While the chance of a repeat of 2004’s perfect storm was small, NYC Audubon is thankful to the Municipal Art Society of New York City for ensuring that no harm is done to our feathered friends as we remember the tragic loss on September 11, 2001.
Interested in volunteering? Please contact volunteer@nycaudubon.org.
|
