Studies of Birds Killed in Nocturnal MigrationTordoff, Harrison Bruce
Science
Studies of Birds Killed in Nocturnal Migration
Tordoff, Harrison Bruce
Birds -- Migration
So far as particulars already mentioned are concerned, the present
sample or other samples of tower-killed birds would seem to be in no
way superior (that is, more nearly random) to samples obtained in
connection with lighthouses and other lighted objects, and
ceilometers. In one important respect, however, it is probably
somewhat superior to these as the dimly red-lighted structure has not
been shown to have any important collecting or attracting influence.
Thus, in computations intended to estimate the over-all abundance of
migrants, the sample should be more reliable than samples involving
bright light with its possible attracting effect.
Number of Migrants
If it can be assumed that nocturnally migrating birds are
approximately uniformly spaced across the sky and that the red lights
did not attract birds which would otherwise have missed the tower, it
is possible to compute the volume of migration from the sample killed.
In regard to the first assumption, both Stone (1906:250-251) and
Lowery (1951:409-413) have presented evidence of fairly uniform
distribution of nocturnal migrants. We have no information on the
second assumption beyond the facts that birds do not strike the high
towers on clear nights or lower towers even on stormy nights.
On nights when large numbers of birds struck the 950 foot Topeka
tower, only a few struck a 500 foot radio tower, also lighted with red
lights, at Lawrence, 24 miles east, under similar weather conditions.
Most of the birds found at Topeka were fairly close to the base of the
tower, indicating that they struck the tower itself or that they were
flying high enough to strike guy wires only fairly close to the tower.
The scarcity of birds under the guy wires some distance from the tower
at Topeka and at the radio tower at Lawrence causes us to think that
most of the birds were flying more than 450 feet above the ground. On
this basis, we have computed numbers of migrants passing through a
plane one mile long and 500 feet high (2,640,000 square feet),
intersecting the assumed path of migration at right angles.
Vertically, the theoretical plane begins at 450 feet above ground and
has its top edge at 950 feet. The solid (discounting spaces between
girders, _etc._) cross-sectional area of the tower intersecting this
plane was computed by actual measurement to be 1685 square feet. On
the night of September 30-October 1, 585 birds were killed. By
computation (585/1685 = X/2,640,000), approximately 916,000 birds
passed through the mile-long plane that night. On each of the nights
of October 5-6 and October 6-7, approximately 230,000 birds passed
through this plane. By comparison, Lowery (1951:436) recorded maximum
station densities in one night in spring of 63,600 birds at Tampico,
Mexico, and 51,600 at Lawrence, Kansas, as determined by
moon-watching. Lowery's figures refer to numbers of birds crossing any
part of a circle one mile in diameter and are roughly comparable to
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