Fox Chapel Area students help keep Pittsburgh bird-friendly
Tawnya Panizzi | Thursday, May 22, 2025 10:01 a.m.
Ornithologists say nearly 600 million birds die every year in North America from window collisions. Students at Fox Chapel Area High School are working to reduce those numbers.
The school’s Wildlife Conservation Club, in conjunction with the National Aviary and BirdSafe Pittsburgh, is urging residents and businesses to dim unnecessary lights from midnight to 6 a.m. as part of the “Lights Out Movement.”
“More than 1 million birds may pass over the Pittsburgh region in a single night during migration season,” said National Aviary ornithologist Robert Mulvihill. “By simply turning off all unnecessary lighting, especially all exterior lights from midnight to 6 a.m., Pittsburghers can help reduce the number of window collisions that typically take place in residential areas.”
Prior to the Aviary, Mulvihill worked nearly 30 years at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve, which operates a world-renowned bird-banding program. His conservation efforts have earned awards from the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology.
Mulvihill said lights can attract migrant birds into urban areas where reflective glass windows and doors provide a serious hazard.
The peak season for migration is in May and June.
Residents can track bird patterns using the website Birdcast Allegheny County. On May 14, the system recorded more than 3 million birds crossing Allegheny County overnight. Species most likely to be here this time of year include the eastern wood-pewee, indigo bunting and scarlet tanager.
Jon Rice, urban bird conservation coordinator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, said light pollution disorients and confuses migrating birds — in some cases, those that fly thousands of feet above the Earth’s surface and travel hundreds of miles in a night.
“Nocturnal migrants use starlight to navigate, and light pollution disrupts this process,” Rice said. “It draws them out of their migratory paths and into human-built spaces, leading to collisions with glass.”
Rice said new research reveals an even more significant problem, with the number of birds dying from colliding with windows in the United States at about 2 billion.
The most recent data considers birds that survive an initial collision but later succumb to their injuries and stress.
Fox Chapel Area junior Theo Tedesco said he was emotional to learn the statistics.
The founder and president of the district’s Wildlife Conservation Club has spent many hours volunteering for organizations whose missions include environmental stewardship, including several summers at Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve in Fox Chapel.
“It’s heartbreaking when you see a young bird that has died because it hit a window,” Tedesco said. “They are such fragile creatures, and taking a simple step like turning off outdoor lights can help protect them.”
Rice said some species appear to be more affected by light pollution and window collisions than others. They include the American woodcock, white-throated sparrows and yellow-bellied sapsuckers.
“Through our findings at BirdSafe Pittsburgh, we have discovered representatives of 94 species of birds that have collided with windows in the Pittsburgh area, one-third of which are state-listed species of greatest conservation need,” he said.
Experts say the Lights Out Movement not only helps save birds, but it also reduces energy costs and harmful greenhouse gas emissions that include carbon dioxide.
Tedesco and other club members have hit the streets to plant yard signs in hope of spreading the word. They are also posting messages to social media and hanging flyers at coffee shops, the Lauri Ann West Community Center in O’Hara and Cooper-Siegel Community Library in Fox Chapel and the Sharpsburg Community Library.
Mulvihill said the movement is crucial because bird health is a signifier of broader conditions.
“All birds are canaries in a coal mine,” Mulvihill said. “They are more sensitive than we are to local environmental changes, and some of those changes, like air and water pollution, could also endanger our own health.
“Early coal miners knew if their caged canaries stopped chirping, they had only a little time to escape the mine shaft before the poison gases overcame them, too. So healthy birds and bird populations signal the health of the local landscape.”