New York City’s autumn weather has caused a huge spike in birds flying into skyscrapers and dying, experts say.
There are almost 1,000 recorded cases of migratory birds smashing headfirst into reflective high rise buildings in Manhattan since August a 53% increase from last years total, The New York Post reported. The deaths have increased specifically this autumn due to unusually high winds and low clouds this year causing migrating flocks to fly faster and at lower altitudes than normal.
Fall of this year has been really hard, Dr. Dustin Partridge, NYC Bird Alliances director of conservation and science, told The Post Tuesday. “Were still waiting on a little bit of the data to come in, but based on the data that we currently have, were already approaching record numbers of birds collided.
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The wind and low-cloud ceiling has pushed an estimated 25 million migrating birds directly into high-risk areas, including a deadly skyscraper hotspot along lower Manhattans Hudson River coastline.
As many as 50 struck birds landed in Rockefeller and Teardrop Parks in 2024 alone, with another 100 smashing into the sparkling One World Trade Center and neighboring Brookfield Place, according to dBird, a crowd-sourced data tracker for the tragedy.
Its upsetting. We keep building glass towers, so it keeps happening, which is really awful, Regina Overath, a horticulturist with Battery Park City Authority, said.
Overath and her team members pluck dozens of dead birds off the ground each migration season and bury them in the coastal parks garden bed, as well as nurse surviving birds back to health. I wish these buildings the glass towers would do something to prevent the birds from flying into them, because the birds cant see, Overath said.
With the migration season coming close to an end, the NYC Bird Alliance Project Safe Flight confirmed that nearly 1,000 birds have flown into buildings during this years collision season compared to only 600 last year. The number might be higher though, considering some bird corpses are scooped up by cleaning crews without documentation, while others are eaten by rats.
Superintendent Edrick Randheen told The Post he has witnessed nearly two dozen dead birds this fall at the base of the Circa Central Park, a curved, glass residential building that has killed many an unsuspecting bird over the years.
Its on both sides, but mostly the park side because the glass reflects the park. The birds think its the park and that theyre flying into the trees, but its glass, Randheen said. When they fly into it, theyre basically breaking their neck instantly.
Robin Becker, a private chef for one of the Circa residents, told The Post that some units in the building have put decals in their windows to prevent the birds from blindly crashing into windows, but the problem has persisted.
One alternative would be replacing the windows with expensive bird-safe glass but that would be costly.
People are upset that the birds are still getting there. Theyre upset about the birds getting hurt. Theyre also upset about the price. I think theyre just not sure what to do, Becker told The Post.
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