Aerial Obstructions
Lighthouses, tall buildings, monuments, television towers, and other aerial obstructions have been responsible for destruction of migratory birds. Bright beams of lights on buildings and airport ceilometers have a powerful attraction for nocturnal air travelers that may be likened to the fascination for lights exhibited by many insects, particularly night-flying moths. The attraction is most noticeable on foggy nights when the rays have a dazzling effect that not only lures the birds but confuses them and causes their death by collision against high structures. The fixed, white, stationary light located 180 feet above sea level at Ponce de Leon Inlet (formerly Mosquito Inlet), Florida, has caused great destruction of bird life even though the lens is shielded by wire netting. Two other lighthouses at the southern end of Florida, Sombrero Key and Fowey Rocks, have been the cause of a great number of bird tragedies, while heavy mortality has been noted also at some of the lights on the Great Lakes and on the coast of Quebec. Fixed white lights seem to be most attractive to birds; lighthouses equipped with flashing or red lights do not have the same attraction.
For many years in Washington, B.C., the illuminated Washington Monument, towering more than 555 feet into the air, caused destruction of large numbers of small birds. Batteries of brilliant floodlights grouped on all four sides about the base illuminate the Monument so brilliantly, airplane pilots noticed that it could be seen for 40 miles on a clear night. It is certain there is an extensive area of illumination, and on dark nights with gusty, northerly winds, nocturnal migrants seem to fly at lower altitudes and are attracted to the Monument. As they mill about the shaft, they are dashed against it by eddies of wind, and hundreds have been killed in a single night.
In September 1948, bird students were startled by news of the wholesale destruction of common yellowthroats, American redstarts, ovenbirds, and others against the 1,250-foot-high Empire State Building in New York City, the 491-foot-high Philadelphia Saving Fund Society Building in Philadelphia, and the 450-foot-high WBAL radio tower in Baltimore. In New York, the birds continued to crash into the Empire State Building for 6 hours.
More recently, the television tower has become the chief hazard. These structures are so tall, sometimes over 1,000 feet, they present more of a menace than buildings or lighthouses. Their blinking lights cause passing migrants to blunder into guy wires or the tower itself while milling around like moths about a flame. Numerous instances (e.g. Stoddard and Norris 1967) throughout the U.S. indicate this peril to migration is widespread. The lethal qualities of airport ceilometers have been effectively modified by conversion to intermittent or rotating beams.