{"id":56815,"date":"2023-04-05T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/?p=56815"},"modified":"2026-04-27T17:02:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:02:57","slug":"bright-lights-and-big-data-radar-ornithology-and-the-rise-of-birdcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/bright-lights-and-big-data-radar-ornithology-and-the-rise-of-birdcast\/","title":{"rendered":"Bright Lights and Big Data: Radar Ornithology and the Rise of BirdCast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">From the Spring 2023 issue of&nbsp;<em>Living Bird<\/em>&nbsp;magazine.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/join.birds.cornell.edu\/page\/14522\/donate\/1?__hstc=75100365.1c483f054451ed10510ff3d865dd7c34.1667335660081.1680041728719.1680043776433.197&amp;__hssc=75100365.4.1680043776433&amp;__hsfp=3338797934\">Subscribe now<\/a>. Excerpted from <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/products\/flight-paths-rebecca-heisman?variant=40517967937570\">Flight Paths<\/a>, <\/em>by Rebecca Heisman, and reprinted with permission of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright order-bottom\"><div class=\"article-list list-style\"><h2 class=\"article-list-header\">More From Living Bird<\/h2><ul><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-living-bird-toc\" data-link-to=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/living-bird-spring-2023-table-of-contents\/\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/TOCBanner-Resplendent_Quetzel-Jong-FI.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/TOCBanner-Resplendent_Quetzel-Jong-FI-720x540.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/TOCBanner-Resplendent_Quetzel-Jong-FI-240x180.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/TOCBanner-Resplendent_Quetzel-Jong-FI-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/TOCBanner-Resplendent_Quetzel-Jong-FI-480x360.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/TOCBanner-Resplendent_Quetzel-Jong-FI.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><a class=\"article-item-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/living-bird-spring-2023-table-of-contents\/\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Spring 2023\u2014Table Of Contents<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-living-bird-toc\" data-link-to=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/living-bird-spring-2026-table-of-contents\/\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest.png 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest-240x180.png 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest-480x360.png 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Living Bird-latest issue\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><a class=\"article-item-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/living-bird-spring-2026-table-of-contents\/\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Magazine\u2014Latest Issue<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\" data-link-to=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/living-bird-magazine-archives\/\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive.png 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive-240x180.png 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive-480x360.png 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Living Bird archives\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><a class=\"article-item-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/living-bird-magazine-archives\/\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Magazine Archives<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Imagine you\u2019re a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. It\u2019s May, and after a winter spent in the tropics, you\u2019re finally on your way home to the forests of eastern North America. Soon, instinct will compel you to build a nest, lay eggs, and hopefully pass your genes on to another generation. You\u2019ve spent the night crossing the Gulf of Mexico, flying high above the dark water, wings beating nonstop for hours. The last of your energy reserves, built up in a feeding frenzy before you departed from the Yucatan, are nearly gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ahead, dazzling lights glimmer on the horizon, and you adjust your course slightly to head toward them. Suddenly you\u2019re over land, but instead of a forest where you can rest and refuel, below you there is nothing but asphalt. The lights you were drawn to are the high-rise office buildings of downtown Houston, which loom all around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Disoriented, you fly into one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We don\u2019t really know why birds migrating at night are attracted to the artificial lights of cities. It may be related to how birds navigate, using the sun and stars as part of their suite of cues to help them orient in the right direction. But we do know that as many as a billion birds die in building collisions like this one every year in the United States alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ideal solution would be to turn out city lights for the full length of the migration season and let the birds pass by in the darkness that evolution has prepared them for. But spring migration lasts for weeks, and shutting off the lights of downtown Houston and Dallas for weeks at a time is, sadly, not realistic. The birds don\u2019t arrive in a uniform stream over that entire timespan, however. There are peaks and valleys in the number of birds arriving from the Gulf, as the tiny travelers adjust their schedule to take advantage of favorable weather conditions. What if we could predict in advance which nights would be quiet and which would see an avian traffic jam in the skies, and switch off the city lights exactly when it was most needed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright has-lightgray-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Birdcast-migration-map.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-56703\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Birdcast-migration-map.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Birdcast-migration-map-720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Birdcast-migration-map-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Birdcast-migration-map-480x270.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Learn more about birdcast<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out all of <a href=\"https:\/\/birdcast.info\/migration-tools\/\">BirdCast&#8217;s migration tools<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/birdcast.info\/migration-tools\/migration-forecast-maps\/\">Bird migration forecast maps<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/birdcast.info\/migration-tools\/live-migration-maps\/\">Live bird migration maps<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/birdcast.info\/migration-tools\/local-migration-alerts\/\">Local bird migration alerts<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/birdcast.info\/migration-tools\/migration-dashboard\/\">Migration dashboard<\/a>\u2014explore nightly migration in your area<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Enter BirdCast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The<a href=\"https:\/\/birdcast.info\/\"> BirdCast project<\/a> began as an effort to protect migrating birds not from city lights, but from pesticides. In the late 1990s, with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a group of organizations and researchers including Sid Gauthreaux at Clemson University set out to develop a project that would use weather radar data to predict the intensity of bird migration in the \u201cmid-Atlantic flyway,\u201d a region stretching along the East Coast from North Carolina to New England. The idea was that property managers could use information from BirdCast to avoid spraying potentially harmful pesticides when especially high numbers of migrating birds would be passing through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a talk by Sid Gauthreaux at the 1998 meeting of the American Ornithologists\u2019 Union (now the American Ornithological Society) in St. Louis that drew a young ornithologist named Andrew Farnsworth to Clemson and set him on a path toward a career with radar and, specifically, BirdCast. For a few years after having finished his bachelor\u2019s degree at Cornell University, Farnsworth was traveling and leading birdwatching tours while deciding what he wanted to do next. After a summer on the coast of Texas, watching weather radar to help figure out when large numbers of migrants would be arriving on the coast, he headed north for the conference in St. Louis hoping to connect with potential advisors for graduate school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSeeing Sid\u2019s talk\u2014it was just the coolest thing ever,\u201d said Farnsworth, who recounted the full history of BirdCast to me over the course of multiple phone interviews. \u201cHe talked about how not only could you use radar to monitor the movements of birds, but you could look at their behavior in the air and assign their origins on the ground to certain habitats, and that was just a mind-blowing moment for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the presentation, Farnsworth approached Gauthreaux, expressing his interest in studying with him. Farnsworth arrived at Clemson just as the BirdCast project was starting, and he\u2019s still working on its latest iteration today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That first version of BirdCast relied on a set of equations originally developed by Gauthreaux in the 1970s to predict the amount of bird migration each day based on weather conditions. Twice a day, Gauthreaux, Farnsworth, or another graduate student gathered data from weather stations in the Atlantic flyway via the internet and input them into Gauthreaux\u2019s mathematical model to generate a forecast. To verify the forecast, they then downloaded NEXRAD radar data and created images showing the actual amount of bird migration in the region. Each morning and evening, the forecast, analysis, and images were posted to a public website that birdwatchers and anyone else interested in migration could access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Doing all of this with turn-of-the-millennium technology was incredibly time consuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt required ingesting the data through a satellite dish on top of the biology building at Clemson, manually tending to the downloads, and then the morning after, we would have to gather those data, assemble them in this weather visualization program, make this image, and then load it to the server,\u201d Farnsworth recalled. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t there, there\u2019d be this big hole on the project website. It was all pretty intense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright has-lightgray-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"623\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Radar-Biomass.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-57082\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Radar-Biomass.jpg 623w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Radar-Biomass-480x286.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 623px) 100vw, 623px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">weather Radar + Birdcast reveals Migration secrets <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/birdcast.info\/news\/a-primer-for-using-weather-surveillance-radar-to-study-bird-migration\/\">A Primer for Using Weather Surveillance Radar to Study Bird Migration<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/eight-intriguing-migration-mysteries-solved-with-birdcast-and-ebird\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"7730\">Eight Intriguing Migration Mysteries Solved with BirdCast and eBird<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/birds-tack-into-the-wind-on-fall-migration-weather-radar-reveals\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"27332\">Birds Tack into the Wind on Fall Migration, Weather Radar Reveals<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It meant Farnsworth always had to be near a good internet connection, at a time when internet access was far from ubiquitous. In fall 2000, the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Mets presented a challenge. The game was a subway series, which for a New York baseball fan is, according to Farnsworth, \u201cbasically the holy grail.\u201d Somebody in his family knew somebody that knew somebody that could get him last-row tickets for game five. So, Farnsworth completed the Thursday post before driving from Clemson to Atlanta to catch a flight to make it to LaGuardia in time for the game that night. After spending all night celebrating the Yankees\u2019 win at a local bar, \u201cI went back to the airport for a 6 a.m. flight, got to Atlanta, got back in the car for a three-hour drive to Clemson, arrived literally just in time to post that Friday\u2019s forecast.\u201d But it was worth it\u2014he invited a woman he barely knew at the time to go to the game with him, and today he\u2019s married to her. Ultimately, BirdCast version 1.0 required an amount of labor that wasn\u2019t feasible to continue indefinitely, and the original BirdCast ceased its run in 2001. It took almost two more decades for computing power to catch up with the ambitions of ornithologists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Farnsworth completed a PhD from Cornell University in 2007 and stayed on at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, first as a postdoctoral research associate and then in a permanent research position. The National Science Foundation had funding available for projects that would apply advances in computer science to other fields, and Farnsworth became one of the co-primary investigators on a 2010 NSF grant proposal to resurrect BirdCast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBy that point, big data was a concept that people understood,\u201d explained Farnsworth. \u201cThe phrase started to have meaning\u2014we can take huge amounts of information and start to figure out how to process it. Computing power was advancing, and with that came increasing amounts of cloud-based data storage, and all of that was evolving really quickly. And all of those things were critically important to where BirdCast would go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Radar data had become easier to access, too. Gone were the days of the NEXRAD archives being stored on tapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201dEven when I was a graduate student, I would have to request radar data for a certain time period, and then I\u2019d wait a day or two, and then I\u2019d get an email to download this big pile of data. My desk was just covered in hard drives, I had so many terabytes of data,\u201d Kyle Horton, a long-time BirdCast collaborator who\u2019s now a professor at Colorado State University, told me. But in 2015, NOAA partnered with Amazon Web Services to store the entire NEXRAD archive in the cloud and make it freely available for download.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe difference is that now the data are always on tap for you,\u201d Horton said.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"article-list alignright right list-style card-four \"><h2 class=\"article-list-header\">BirdCast and Lights<\/h2><ul><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\" data-link-to=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/9-11-tribute-in-light-birds-night-migration\/\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/TiL-FI-Jogandorf.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/TiL-FI-Jogandorf.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/TiL-FI-Jogandorf-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/TiL-FI-Jogandorf-480x270.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Tribute in Light, NYC skyline, by Bob Jogandorf\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><a class=\"article-item-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/9-11-tribute-in-light-birds-night-migration\/\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">The 9\/11 Tribute in Light Is Helping Us Learn About Bird Migration<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\" data-link-to=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/new-york-city-passes-landmark-lights-out-laws\/\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/CityHall-Castillo-FI.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/CityHall-Castillo-FI-720x405.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/CityHall-Castillo-FI-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/CityHall-Castillo-FI-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/CityHall-Castillo-FI-480x270.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/CityHall-Castillo-FI.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"New York City Hall lit up at night. Photo by Rian Castillo\/Creative Commons.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><a class=\"article-item-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/new-york-city-passes-landmark-lights-out-laws\/\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">New York City Passes Landmark Lights-Out Laws<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\" data-link-to=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/heres-how-to-use-the-new-migration-forecast-tools-from-birdcast\/\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/birdcast-fi-4x3-1.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/birdcast-fi-4x3-1-720x540.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/birdcast-fi-4x3-1-240x180.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/birdcast-fi-4x3-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/birdcast-fi-4x3-1-480x360.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/birdcast-fi-4x3-1.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"map of the continental U.S. showing intensity of bird migration\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><a class=\"article-item-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/heres-how-to-use-the-new-migration-forecast-tools-from-birdcast\/\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">How to Use BirdCast Maps and Dashboard to See Your Local Migration in Detail<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n<p>The next breakthrough came in 2018. Benjamin Van Doren, who had worked on the project as an undergraduate at Cornell, and Horton, then a Cornell Lab postdoctoral researcher, downloaded NEXRAD data for every single evening since the system was installed. These 150,000-plus individual radar scans spanned the entire continent over a period of 23 years. Van Doren and Horton then analyzed this massive dataset to find out what weather factors\u2014wind, air temperature, barometric pressure, etc.\u2014predicted the appearance of big migration movements on radar. Essentially, they were following the path Sid Gauthreaux first laid out with the mathematical models he developed in the 1970s, but with a far more massive dataset and greater computing power. (Although Horton never studied directly under Gauthreaux, in professor parlance he\u2019s Gauthreaux\u2019s \u201cacademic great-grandson\u201d: Gauthreaux was Horton\u2019s grad school mentor\u2019s mentor\u2019s mentor.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The main text of the resulting scientific paper, published in the journal <em>Science <\/em>in 2018, is only three pages long. But in it, Van Doren and Horton laid out a system for predicting mass movements of migrating birds on a continental scale. Their math explained almost 80% of the variation in migration intensity from one night to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Having done analysis for a while now, when you\u2019re working a model in biology or ecology, you have certain expectations of what\u2019s good,\u201d said Horton. \u201cWhen we got those results, we were like, oh, this is really good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most important factor, as it turned out, was air temperature, probably because of the relationship between air temperature and winds favorable to crossing the Gulf. Crucially, the model Van Doren and Horton created could predict migration intensity several days in advance, using only current weather conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat just seemed like a very powerful thing, both from the standpoint of getting birdwatchers excited, but also as a real tool to do conservation with,\u201d said Horton. \u201cWe could say, this is going to be one of the big nights in Texas or in Oklahoma or New York or wherever you are. We could predict it fairly accurately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based&nbsp;on their analysis of the NEXRAD archives, Van Doren and Horton concluded that during peak migration, the number of birds on the move on a single night frequently exceeds 200 million. For comparison, 200 million is roughly the human population of Brazil. A nation of birds of all shapes and sizes, passing overhead as we sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright has-lightgray-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"667\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/FlightPaths-book.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-57083\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/FlightPaths-book.jpg 667w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/FlightPaths-book-480x720.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 667px) 100vw, 667px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">About the Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Rebecca Heisman is a freelance science writer and frequent <em>Living Bird<\/em> contributor based in Walla Walla, Washington. In the Winter 2023 issue she wrote about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/harsh-mountain-winters-have-made-chickadees-smarter\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"55233\">Mountain Chickadee spatial cognition<\/a>.&nbsp;The current article is an excerpt from her 2023 book&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/products\/flight-paths-rebecca-heisman?variant=40517967937570\">Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration<\/a>, now on sale at bookstores.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>BirdCast may have gotten its start as an effort to protect birds from pesticides, but by this time, BirdCast scientists were turning their attention to a different threat: city lights. Even though we\u2019re still not sure exactly why lights are so irresistible to migrating birds, radar is helping us unravel just how much of a threat those lights are. A 2018 study led by researchers James McLaren and Jeff Buler used radar data to show that city lights actually affect migrating birds\u2019 habitat usage at a broad scale, with dense clouds of migrants descending on brightly lit cities across the country during migratory stopovers instead of settling in darker, potentially better habitat nearby. And in another big-data project that analyzed the entire NEXRAD archives, Kyle Horton and his colleagues ranked the worst cities for exposing migrating birds to light at night (Chicago, Houston, and Dallas topped the list) and determined that half of a season\u2019s migrants typically pass through these crucial areas over just a handful of nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Campaigns in cities to encourage businesses and residents to turn out exterior lights during migration have been around since at least 1993. But Horton and his colleagues are working on refining these efforts, using BirdCast forecasts to identify the most critical nights, the nights when weather conditions mean that the numbers of migrants passing through will be exceptionally large. The hope is that city-dwellers who may be reluctant to give up their lights for weeks at a time will still be receptive to these \u201clights out alerts\u201d and clear a darkened path for the millions of birds winging their way north on these special nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Residents of major cities along the Gulf Coast and elsewhere can sign up via the BirdCast website to receive alerts when a big migration night is imminent. In 2019, American National Insurance, based in the coastal city of Galveston, pledged to turn out the lights at its headquarters building, which had proved fatal for migrating birds in the past. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tweets out the #LightsOut hashtag to alert its followers in advance of big nights. Even former first lady Laura Bush, who apparently became a bird lover at age 10 when she earned her bird badge for Girl Scouts, has helped promote the campaign to turn off lights in Texas cities at the height of migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fall 2019, a landmark study in the journal <em>Science <\/em>announced an alarming finding: North America\u2019s bird populations have declined by almost 30% since 1970, a loss of approximately 3 billion individual birds. NEXRAD data from 2007 to 2017 was part of the authors\u2019 analysis. The results from the radar data showed that the biomass of nocturnal migrant birds traveling along the continent\u2019s flyways each spring declined by 13% in that decade alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But&nbsp;there\u2019s reason to hope. 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