Montreal bridge lit up in blue and green to protect migrating birds

“They deserve our respect. And I think humans, we have to give them a chance and help them,” said bird specialist and field guide Joël Coutu.

It’s officially spring in Montreal and migrating birds are coming back from their winter vacation down south. Their long journeys don’t come without obstacles – one of them is light pollution.

Montreal now hoping to help the birds get back home safely by lighting the Champlain bridge green and blue.

“We have to live and share this world together. And I think there are always solutions. And we’ve been given a chance and help them out,” said Coutu.

You might spot bigger birds on their journey back while it’s daylight but songbirds like the song sparrow and the tree swallow tend to travel by night.
Though they do so to avoid predators during dark hours, they have a modern issue to deal with – bright lights.

“Static red light is really, really attractive to birds more than any other kind of light. And so it has something to do with what’s called quantum light in their eyes, in their retinas. They’re especially sensitive to the red color and it attracts them. And so when you have that red light on those bridges, then migrating birds are attracted to those bridges. And again, they get this oriented and they get they can’t leave and they just simply fly around until they drop into the water and die,” said ornithologist and emeritus professor of wildlife biology at McGill University Dr. David Bird.

It’s no secret that migrating birds are nothing short of impressive – traveling hundreds and thousands of kilometres during the migration period.

But how do they know where to go?

“Migrating birds use a number of cues to find their way. And at nighttime, they’ll use the stellar constellations. And if they get into a bright light situation, they can’t see those anymore. So they can’t use that as a tool. They also have another tool, and it has to do with the earth’s geomagnetic field,” said Dr. Bird.

“Birds have an amazing ability to actually see. When I put quotation marks around the word see, they don’t see these lines on the earth showing the the earth’s geomagnetic field. They can sense it so they know where north is and they know where south is. And apparently the red light interferes with that ability in their eyeballs.”

“It’s not easy being a bird today and it’s rough so that’s why it’s always impressive when you see a bird that’s just a few centimeters big and you say wow you’ve experienced a lot on your trip back,” said Coutu.

Experts applaud the efforts put in place to help migrating birds but say climate change and destruction of habitat is making is harder and harder for these extraordinary flyers to survive.

“There’s 11,000 bird species in the world, and over 12 per cent of them are threatened with extinction in a serious way. And so there are many things threatening birds. It’s not just light pollution. That’s just one factor,” said Dr. Bird.