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Billions of birds are migrating now. Turn out the lights to make their journey safer

Great cormorants flying in V-formation against blue sky. (Sven-Erik Arndt/Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Great cormorants flying in V-formation against blue sky. (Sven-Erik Arndt/Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

This week is peak time for bird migration in the northern part of the U.S. when hundreds of species fly north from their winter homes in South and Central America and the southern U.S. Birds have an innate ability to know where to go and when, but lights and windows make the journey dangerous.

Andrew Farnsworth, a scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, tells Here & Now‘s Deepa Fernandes how we can make the world safer for birds by turning out lights during peak migration times and by applying anti-reflective film and decals to windows to prevent birds from flying into them.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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