Lights Out for the Birds

St. Louis sits on the Mississippi Flyway, one of North America’s great migration corridors. Twice a year millions of birds pass overhead — most of them at night, navigating by the stars. Our lights pull them off course. The fix is the easiest one there is: turn them off.

Why it matters here

Most songbirds migrate after dark. Artificial light disorients them, draws them into brightly lit areas, and leaves them circling until they’re exhausted or collide with glass. Building collisions kill an estimated hundreds of millions of birds in the U.S. each year. When one major Chicago building went half-dark, collisions dropped several-fold.

When to go dark

Spring: roughly April–May.   Fall: roughly September–October. Peak nights are usually in May and September. Watch the live BirdCast forecast for St. Louis County to see big migration nights before they happen.

What to do — takes five minutes

• Turn off non-essential outdoor lights from 11pm to dawn during migration.
• Put necessary lights on motion sensors, and shield them so they point down.
• Close blinds and curtains on bright upstairs windows at night.
• Swap blue-white bulbs for warm (2700K or lower) ones — better for birds and for you.
• Ask your workplace or HOA to dim lobby, sign, and parking-lot lighting overnight in season.

Do more

Join Lights Out Heartland (the regional campaign led by DarkSky Missouri), and support St. Louis Audubon’s BirdSafeSTL, which surveys collisions and helps buildings become bird-safe.