Wired.com: 9/11 Memorial Lights Trap Thousands of Birds
Photo credit: Wired.com
On the evening of the ninth anniversary of 9/11, the twin columns of light projected as a memorial over the World Trade Center site became a source of mystery. Illuminated in the beams were thousands of small white objects, sparkling and spiraling, unlike anything seen on other nights. Some viewers wondered if they were scraps of paper or plastic caught in updrafts from the spotlights’ heat. From beneath, it was at times like gazing into a snowstorm. Those unidentified objects have now been identified as birds, pulled from their migratory path and bedazzled by the light in a perfect, poignant storm of avian disorientation.
“It’s only happened once before. It’s a confluence of circumstances that come together to cause this,” said John Rowden, citizen science director at the Audubon Society’s New York City chapter. “Some of it has to do with meteorological conditions, and some with the phase of the moon.”
New York City sits in the middle of a major migration corridor, used for millennia by birds flying south for the winter. During autumn nights, thousands of birds pass directly above the megalopolis, a passage generally unnoticed by its human inhabitants.
Posted by WILDNEWJERSEY at 9/16/2010 1:30 PM 
Categories: Birds
Tags: audubon society 911 memorial world trade center migration nyc memorial lights
Categories: Birds
Tags: audubon society 911 memorial world trade center migration nyc memorial lights
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