Lights Out Hampton Roads.
It's time for Lights Out Hampton Roads. We are asking commercial and institutional building owners/tenants to minimize unnecessary lights and make some lighting changes during the peak spring migration period of March 15 - May 31.
Hampton Roads lies directly along the Atlantic Flyway used by millions of birds every year to migrate north in the spring and south in the fall. The Chesapeake Bay is a major stopover point for the birds on their marathon journey. The majority of birds fly at night, navigating with the night sky. However, as they pass through urban areas like Hampton Roads, they can become disoriented by bright artificial lights and skyglow, often causing them to collide with buildings or windows. And building collisions are just the most acute hazard, many more birds are put at risk by the amount of energy the birds waste flying around brightly lit areas, exhausting and leaving them vulnerable to other urban threats. Lights Out also has secondary benefits that includes protecting moths, reducing light pollution, reducing energy costs for businesses, and reducing the regions overall carbon footprint.
Lights Out is a voluntary program that involves turning off and/or blocking as many external and internal building lights at workplaces as possible at night to help prevent injury and death of birds migrating through the Hampton Roads area during the spring and fall bird migrations. This can be as simple as reminding employees to flip the switch on the way out of the office and ensuring that the evening cleaning crews make turning off any office lights part of their to-do list. The next step can be incorporating motion detecting light switches to turn off the lights when no one is around. All of these steps protect migrating birds and save money!
Specific actions include the following:
• Turn off interior lighting at night, especially on upper floors
• Substitute task and area lighting for workers staying late
• Down-shield exterior lighting or limit lights to the ground level
• Turn off exterior decorative lighting
• Reduce lobby and atrium lighting where possible
• Extinguish spot and flood-lights where possible
We also need volunteers to help with outreach and monitoring for dead and injured birds in downtown Norfolk. If you can help, please reach out to Pat Scanlon at pescanlon@cox.
Join the list of organizations working to protect birds and the environment in Hampton Roads. Visit our webpage to sign up at https://birdsafehr.blogspot.com/
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