Michael Parr, vice president of the American Bird Conservancy, gazed into the trees on Roosevelt Island on a morning earlier this month as a warbling vireo sang away.
“Jonathan, do you think that’s the least interesting looking bird in North America?” Parr asked novelist Jonathan Franzen, who was standing beside him. “It’s certainly on the list.”
A debate ensued over the small gray creature perched atop a branch, a species the Cornell Lab of Ornithology calls, unkindly, “a drab bird of riparian woodlands.”
“Yes, along with the orange-crowned warbler,” Franzen replied.
Parr agreed. “It’s false advertising,” he said. “You can never see the crown.”
Spring bird migration has just finished peaking along the East Coast, bringing striking and unimpressive species alike as they make their way north. The pathway they navigate has become increasingly perilous, as factors ranging from illuminated buildings to wind turbines exact a toll.
“It is literally a commando course for these birds to navigate through, and we’re making it worse,” Parr said, walking through one of the places to spot birds during their spring flyover. Along with Rock Creek Park, Washington’s Theodore Roosevelt Island offers respite and foraging grounds for migrating birds.
Federal officials and conservationists are trying to reduce the threats the birds face and appear poised to make major gains on the most basic of avian obstacles: commercial and residential buildings that get in their way.
Building windows and those that are lit at night kill hundreds of millions of birds in the United States annually, according to experts. The American Bird Conservancy estimates that glass accounted for between 100 million and 1 billon bird deaths in 2006, while urban light killed at least 31 million in 2009.
In the case of glass, birds often either fail to see it or are disoriented by its reflectivity. Illuminated buildings, by contrast, attract birds when the surrounding area is dark.
The only other threat that exacts a similar toll on birds is cats, which kill between 500 million and a billion of them a year.
Anne Lewis, president of the D.C.-based City Wildlife, said the battered birds she and other volunteers collect at the foot of the city’s buildings during their early-morning walks belong to some of North America’s most imperiled species. Last year her group found 89 dead and 35 injured birds near edifices including the Convention Center and the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building.
“We’re not talking about common birds. What we’re finding are the beautiful migrants, the songbirds in decline,” said Lewis, who helps lead expeditions during the spring and fall migration seasons. “We’re going to need every one of these birds to breed if we’re going to keep these populations from decline.”
The lights are now out in the Marshall building’s atrium each night, according to a spokeswoman for the Architect of the Capitol, and the office is working with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to develop a long-term solution that will address both the collision risk and building security.
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