In the deep forests of an enchanting land, there exists a breathtaking sight that fills the atmosphere with pure magic. Here, amidst the lush green foliage, reside 150 million songbirds that possess a mesmerizing ability - the power to cast spells through their melodic tunes. These songbirds are not ordinary creatures; each one is imbued with unique magical capabilities. Their vibrant feathers shimmer with a kaleidoscope of colors, radiating an ethereal beauty that captivates all who behold them. From emerald green to sapphire blue, their plumage is a testament to their enchanting nature. The forest itself serves as their sprawling kingdom, where they live harmoniously in majestic treehouses adorned with delicate petals and woven vines.
Chicago Field Museum workers on Oct. 5 inspect the bodies of migrating birds that were killed when they flew into the windows of the McCormick Place Lakeside Center, a Chicago exhibition hall, the prior night.
Building managers can simply dim their lights, she said, and architects can design windows with markings in the glass that birds can easily recognize. Planting and maintaining grass are the most common CRP practices because of grass wide array of benefits and low cost relative to other conservation practices.
The forest itself serves as their sprawling kingdom, where they live harmoniously in majestic treehouses adorned with delicate petals and woven vines. Within these dwellings, they spend their days perfecting their magical songs, a practice passed down through countless generations. The songbirds' melodies are far from ordinary; they hold the power to heal wounds, mend hearts, and even shape-shift the physical world.
Nearly 1,000 migrating songbirds perish after crashing into windows at Chicago exhibition hall
About 80% of birds travel at night, and those bright city lights can pose a deadly distraction.
David Willard has been checking the grounds of Chicago's lakefront exhibition center for dead birds for 40 years. On Thursday morning he found something horrible: Hundreds of dead songbirds, so thick they looked like a carpet.
Nearly 1,000 songbirds perished during the night after crashing into the McCormick Place Lakeside Center's windows, the result, according to avian experts, of a deadly confluence of prime migration conditions, rain and the low-slung exhibition hall's lights and window-lined walls.
"It was just like a carpet of dead birds at the windows there," said Willard, a retired bird division collections manager at the Chicago Field Museum, where his duties included administering, preserving and cataloging the museum's collection of 500,000 bird specimens as well as searching for bird strikes as part of migration research.
"A normal night would be zero to 15 (dead) birds. It was just kind of a shocking outlier to what we've experienced," he said. "In 40 years of keeping track of what's happening at McCormick, we've never seen anything remotely on that scale."
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Researchers estimate hundreds of millions of birds die in window strikes in the United States each year. Scientists with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a study in 2014 that put the number between 365 million and 988 million birds annually.
Window strikes are an issue in almost every major U.S. city. Birds don't see clear or reflective glass and don't understand it's a lethal barrier. When they see plants or bushes through windows or reflected in them, they head for them, killing themselves in the process.
Birds that migrate at night, such as sparrows and warblers, rely on stars to navigate. Bright lights from buildings both attract and confuse them, leading to window strikes or birds flying around the lights until they die from exhaustion — known as fatal light attraction. In 2017, for example, almost 400 passerines became disoriented in a Galveston, Texas, skyscraper's floodlights and died in collisions with windows.
"Unfortunately, it is really common," said Matt Igleski, executive director of the Chicago Audubon Society. "We see this in pretty much every major city during spring and fall migration. This (the window strikes at McCormick Place) was a very catastrophic single event, but when you add it all up (across the country), it's always like that."
Chicago Field Museum workers on Oct. 5 inspect the bodies of migrating birds that were killed when they flew into the windows of the McCormick Place Lakeside Center, a Chicago exhibition hall, the prior night.
Daryl Coldren, Chicago Field Museum via AP
Conditions were ripe for a massive wave of songbird southern migration over Chicago on Wednesday evening, said Stan Temple, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife ecology professor and avian expert.
Small songbirds feed during the day and migrate at night to avoid air turbulence and predators. They've been waiting for northerly winds to give them a boost south, Temple said, but September saw unusually warm southern winds that kept birds in a holding pattern here. On Wednesday evening a front swept south, providing a tailwind, and thousands of birds took to the skies.
"You had all these birds that were just raring to go but they've been held up with this weird September and October with temperatures way above normal," Temple said. "You had this huge pack of birds take off."
The birds swept south over Chicago, following the Lake Michigan shoreline — right into a maze of illuminated structures, Temple said.
Pre-dawn rain forced the birds to drop to lower altitudes, where they found McCormick Place's lights on, Willard said. According to the field museum's count, 964 birds died at the center. That's about 700 more than have been found there at any point in the last 40 years, Willard said. Members of 33 species died, according to the field museum; most of them were palm and yellow-rumped warblers.
Window strikes and fatal light attraction are easily preventable, said Anna Pidgeon, an avian ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Building managers can simply dim their lights, she said, and architects can design windows with markings in the glass that birds can easily recognize. People can add screens, paint their windows or apply decals to the glass as well.
The National Audubon Society launched a program in 1999 called Lights Out, an effort to encourage urban centers to turn off or dim lights during migration months. Nearly 50 U.S. and Canadian cities joined the movement, including Toronto, New York, Boston, San Diego, Dallas and Miami. New York City took to shutting off the twin beams of light symbolizing the World Trade Center for periods of time during its annual Sept. 11 memorial ceremony to prevent birds from becoming trapped in the light shafts.
Chicago also participates in the Lights Out program. The City Council in 2020 passed an ordinance requiring bird safety measures in new buildings but has yet to implement them. The first buildings at McCormick Place were constructed in 1959.
Cynthia McCafferty, a spokesperson for McCormick Place, said the exhibition hall participates in Lights Out and interior lighting is turned off unless staff, clients or visitors need it. She said an event has been going on all week at the center so the lights have been on when the building was occupied but turned off when it wasn't. She added that the center maintains a 6-acre bird sanctuary.
Participation is down 40% in this agricultural program that protects wildlife, water, and soil
Participation is down 40% in this agricultural program that protects wildlife, water, and soil
Paying farmers to fallow their fields for conservation only works if the price is right, no matter how noble the cause. In some regions of the United States, farmers can net higher returns by continuing to harvest crops like corn and soybeans than they would if they leased their land for conservation efforts.
In 2021, the Biden administration set a "30 by 30 goal" by which the U.S. would conserve 30% of all land and waterways by 2030. Achieving this goal requires leveraging existing programs like the Conservation Reserve Program.
Under the CRP, established in the 1985 Farm Bill, the government pays farmers to take portions of their eligible farmland—typically marginal, less productive acres—and temporarily grow grasses, trees, and native plants instead of crops. The voluntary program is primarily utilized for climate change mitigation purposes such as carbon dioxide sequestration, land erosion reduction, water quality improvement, and wildlife habitat creation. There are 22 million acres of farmland currently enrolled in the program, representing a $1.77 billion government investment—or about $80 per acre on average.
While beneficial in the short term, this system is far from perfect. When the 10-year land lease period expires, farmers can choose to go back to using their land for agriculture, potentially undoing conservation gains.
The Environmental Working Group estimates that if all the land enrolled in the CRP over the last three years were plowed, it would release more than 2 million tons of soil carbon back into the atmosphere—just one example of the drawbacks of these temporary incentives. Similarly, the USDA estimates the total acreage currently devoted to the program is keeping 12 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
Thistle compiled data from the Farm Service Agency to look at how enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program has changed over time. Contract expirations and variable soil rental rates across the country have, in part, contributed to declining enrollment over the last 15 years. Soil rental rates vary by region and agricultural use and are tied to local land rental market prices. While some parts of the U.S. are experiencing an increase, others have experienced a decrease in pastureland and cropland values in recent years.
Simon Bratt // Shutterstock
There is less land in the Conservation Reserve Program than there used to be
Some of the CRP enrollment declines can be attributed to expiring contracts. The drops may also be related to the complex economics of enrollment—or the comparatively uncomplicated fact that some enrollees are simply getting lower soil rental rates for their acres based on the market value in their region.
When facing a 4-million-acre enrollment shortage in 2021, the USDA calculated the environmental impact this would have. The agency estimated, among other effects, the loss of 4 million game and grassland birds, the addition of 90 million pounds of nitrogen entering waterways, 30 million tons of soil erosion leading to water pollution, and 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide unsequestered by vegetation.
Most counties have seen declines in participation over the past 10 years
Counties that have seen growing enrollment have likely benefitted from expanded CRP eligibility and offerings such as establishing grassland minimum rental rates—a change helping more than 1,300 counties across the country.
Enrollment has been most heavily concentrated in the Upper Midwest and Great Plains regions of the U.S., with enrollment in the East being the lowest. The CRP caps enrollment at 25% of a county's total cropland.
Grassland establishment and habitat expansion are among the most common programs
Planting and maintaining grass are the most common CRP practices because of grass' wide array of benefits and low cost relative to other conservation practices. Grass can prevent soil loss from wind and water erosion, create habitats for bird species, improve water quality by filtering sediments and retaining nutrients, and store carbon.
Riparian buffers, referred to here as vegetation along waterways, are less commonly implemented due to their scale but are essential for their role in preventing bank erosion and protecting waterways from agricultural runoff.
New changes from the USDA seek to improve participation
To increase enrollment, the USDA made several significant program changes over the past two years, including rate flexibility, more contract options, increased incentives, increased payments for certain practices like those that improve water quality, and greater technical assistance.
Additionally, the USDA enrolled the first three tribal nations in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, an offshoot of the CRP, in 2021. Together, the Cheyenne River Sioux, Oglala Sioux, and Rosebud Sioux tribes will allot up to 3 million acres of tribal land for conservation.
This story originally appeared on Thistle and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
Their enchanting chorus can turn a barren field into a blooming garden, summon gentle rain to end a drought, or bring joy to the saddest of souls. It is said that their harmonies can awaken dormant magic within individuals, granting them newfound abilities and igniting a spark of wonder in their lives. The magical songbirds possess a deep connection with the natural world around them. With a single note, they can stir the wind, causing leaves to dance and flowers to bloom. They understand the language of the forest, communicating with its inhabitants, from the wisest of trees to the mischievous woodland creatures. The existence of these songbirds has long been shrouded in mystery, as their presence is concealed from the human realm. Their powers are a gift entrusted only to those who inhabit this mystical forest, ensuring that their magic remains pure and untainted. These marvelous creatures serve as a reminder of the wonders that lie hidden in nature, waiting to be discovered. They evoke a sense of awe and inspire the belief that magic exists beyond the realm of fairy tales. The songbirds' melodic spells weave a tapestry of enchantment, making the world a little brighter, a little kinder, and a little more wondrous. In this realm of 150 million magical songbirds, harmony is not only found in their melodies but also in the unity they share with the forest and all its inhabitants. Together, they bring forth a symphony of magic that rejuvenates the spirit and reignites the spark of imagination within each individual fortunate enough to witness their enchanting presence..
Reviews for "Understanding the decline in 150 million magical songbird populations"
1. Emily - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with "150 million magical songbirds". The plot was confusing and didn't make sense. It seemed like the author just threw in random magical elements without any explanation. The characters were also lacking depth and development. Overall, I found the book to be boring and I struggled to finish it.
2. Mark - 1 star - This book was a complete waste of my time. The writing was sloppy and filled with grammatical errors. The story had so many plot holes and inconsistencies that it was hard to follow. The magical elements felt forced and out of place. I wouldn't recommend "150 million magical songbirds" to anyone.
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4. Andrew - 1 star - "150 million magical songbirds" was a complete disaster. The writing was overly descriptive and dragged on unnecessarily. The plot was weak and lacked originality. The magical elements felt forced and didn't add anything meaningful to the story. I regret wasting my time on this book and would not recommend it to anyone.