Nearly 1,000 migrating birds killed after crashing into McCormick Place
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Nearly 1,000 birds died Wednesday night after crashing into the windows at McCormick Place Lakeside Center, likely due to a combination of the convention center's bright lights and the rainy weather.
The birds met their death while making their migratory journey south.
"It was an unbelievable kill that happened, and there were over 900. I think the final total was 961 birds just at McCormick Place," said Douglas Stotz, senior conservation ecologist at the Field Museum of Natural History.
Stotz said the 961 bird deaths by far the most they've seen in one night.
"The most we had had before in a single night was 200 and some," he said.
Several hundred more dead birds were found downtown. So what happened?
"When birds are migrating, they don't understand that they can't fly through windows, and lights attract them. So the combination of lights and windows is deadly," Stotz said.
On Wednesday night, Chicago saw a large swarm of migrating birds, most of them tiny warblers. Why so many birds?
"The number of birds that died in large part reflected the fact that there were unbelievable numbers of birds that were migrating through here," Stotz said.
The rain and warm weather stalled their migration, so when that cleared, they all flocked to the city together, and at McCormick Place, it was the perfect storm.
Experts said the glass windows at McCormick Place can confuse the birds, who oftentimes see skylines or trees reflected in them, causing them to collide with the glass.
There are things you can do at your own home to help prevent birds from crashing into your windows.
"The public can treat their windows at home – adding visual markers on glass," said Brendon Samuels, research coordinator for Fatal Light Awareness Program Canada, a nonprofit authority on bird-building collisions.
Closing your curtains at night can help too.
Bird advocates are also calling on enforcement to protect birds.
"Public buildings or otherwise need to updated with bird-safe design requirements, as we have seen done in places like New York City," he said.
As for the hundreds of dead birds, volunteers collected them and sent them to the Field Museum, where they'll be used for research purposes.