Almost 1,000 migrating songbirds have perished after smashing into windows at an exhibition center in Chicago on Thursday night.
Almost 1,000 songbirds died in a single night after smashing into the windows of a glass-fronted exhibition center in Chicago. 'It was just like a carpet of dead birds at the windows there,' said David Willard, a retired bird division collections manager at the Chicago Field Museum. Willard has been checking the grounds of the McCormick Place Lakeside Center for 40 years, but Thursday's check was 'a shocking outlier.' 'A normal night would be zero to 15 birds.
Unfortunately, birds don't see the clear or reflective glass and dive headfirst into it, killing themselves in the process. Temple said that small birds wait until darkness to migrate in an effort to mitigate air turbulence and run-ins with predators, adding to the risk factor of running into buildings in cities across America. Matt Igleski, executive director of the Chicago Audubon Society, said such incidents are 'really common'.
He explained: 'We see this in pretty much every major city during spring and fall migration. This was a very catastrophic single event, but when you add it all, it's always like that.'
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