Migratory bird festival teaches impacts of light pollution

The annual World Migratory Bird festival was held at Lafayette’s Waneka Lake Park on Sept. 18. Visitors were treated to presentations, giveaways and lots of birdwatching.

The festival was a collaboration between Lafayette’s Open Space and Environment for the Americas, an international nonprofit based in Boulder. Martin Ogle, contract education coordinator for Open Space, developed the festival and continues to oversee it. He believes bird-related activities are especially effective in imparting knowledge and appreciation of local environments.

“I sometimes say that birds might be the single most perfect area through which we can get to know our world. Through birds, we can learn about biology and geography and migration and culture and all sorts of other things,” he said.

Local Danielle Lancellotti, a return attendee, looked to pass her appreciation of nature to her children.

“We are big birders in my family and we like that Lafayette has so much variety in birds. We came last year, too, with my kiddos to try to introduce them to the space and just get them more acclimated to the wildlife around here.”

Former Colorado resident Terri Macey lives in Iowa but was happy to return with a new appreciation of her old home’s birds.

“I became a birder in Iowa, which is great for birds,” she said. “But since I never birded when I lived in Colorado, it’s just such a treat to come here and see all the western birds.”

Visitors witnessed research efforts by Thorne Nature Experience. Dr. Oakleigh Thorne, the organization’s founder and honorary president, led teen volunteers on a bird banding project. One of the methods of migration research is capturing birds and placing metal bands, each of which is uniquely numbered, around the foot. The band number is entered into a database along with the capture date and location. If a banded bird is recaptured by another researcher, the recapture location and date is recorded and added to the database. In this way, researchers can collaboratively study bird behavior and migration.

Teen volunteers collected Bushtits, a small songbird, from nets placed around a feeding station. Thorne, net in hand, pursued hummingbirds. After capturing a Calliope Hummingbird, he sat down with precise tools to build a tiny, specialized band to fit around the hummingbird’s miniscule foot.

Dr. Susan Bonfield represented Environment for the Americas.

“Each year for World Migratory Bird Day we pick a different conservation theme,” she said. “This year the theme is the impacts of light pollution on birds.” 

Light pollution is unnatural levels of light that can interfere with natural processes. According to literature distributed by Environment for the Americas, 80% of North American birds migrate at night. These birds follow established routes using the stars as a guide. Artificial light can disrupt natural migration behavior.

Another impact light pollution has on birds is window collisions. 

“A lot of places leave their lights on at night, (but) birds don’t see glass panes, so they’ll either try to fly towards that light,” Bonfield said. She demonstrated simple ways to reduce collisions with a model window, paper cutouts and small stickers. “We’re just showing some of the options that are available to people to help birds see their glass panes so they don’t fly into them.”

Lancellotti believes bringing young people to natural places is part of ensuring future conservation.

“I think showing the kids the (natural) diversity of what’s here now so that they can help preserve it in the future is really important,” she said.