Birds Georgia documents 202 bird collisions into buildings across metro Atlanta and Coastal Georgia

Caption

A Birds Georgia "Project Safe Flight" volunteer collects bird/building collision victims.

Credit: Gavin MacDonald

A team of around 100 volunteers from the nonprofit Birds Georgia documented 202 bird/building collisions across metro Atlanta and Coastal Georgia during this year’s spring migration. That’s about 60 collisions above the spring average.

"It’s estimated that we're only finding 10% to 20% of the actual collision victims, so the number is likely very high for Georgia," said Birds Georgia Conservation Coordinator Sarah Manning.

The birds' bodies were collected across Atlanta, Savannah and Brunswick during the peak of spring migration in the last two weeks of March. Nearly half of the bodies were found beneath windows of residential buildings.

Collisions occur at night, when most birds are migrating.

"They're drawn into our city by the lighting, and then they rest in those nice habitat patches that they find," Manning said. "And when they wake up in the morning, they're surrounded by what looks like more habitat, and it's actually just reflective glass. So they're flying to the next tree, but it's actually just glass."

And most of the time, the collision is fatal.

Birds Georgia recommends that residents avoid washing windows during spring and fall migration, add insect screens, and turn off nonessential outdoor lighting overnight.