Feathered Travelers Get Emergency Way Station

Every spring and fall, as millions of birds migrate, Robbie L. Hunsinger steps up her patrol of the city in search of injured wildlife.

She and dozens of other volunteer Chicago Bird Collision Monitors try to help the many birds that slam into skyscrapers each year, stunning themselves and often falling to their deaths.

“We had 100 bird rescues in one day last fall,” Hunsinger said. “We had over 400 rescues last fall. Clearly we have a problem with injured birds.”

Rehabilitation centers for injured birds are at least an hour’s drive from downtown, Hunsinger said. So she and other avian lovers pleaded their case to the city, which agreed to build a mini-hospital for birds at the former Meigs Field airport on Northerly Island, a peninsula in Lake Michigan. The site is 1.3 miles southeast of downtown.

The Chicago Park District is dedicating part of the airport’s former terminal to bird rehab. Park District officials said they expected the project to be completed by early September.

Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Inc. of Barrington, a suburban Chicago nonprofit that helps animals return to their habitat, will operate the new center. Flint Creek Wildlife’s president and founder, Dawn Keller, said volunteers would initially run the center, where birds and other wildlife would receive basic veterinary care.

Keller said her organization was collecting donations for the estimated $100,000 a year the new center would need to expand its services and to pay for equipment, staff and supplies.

The center would be temporary because a plan for the peninsula isn’t finished, said Planning and Development Director Arnold Randall of the Park District, which is redeveloping Northerly Island. But it could become permanent because “out of the hundreds of ideas we received, this seemed to be a clear fit with what we’re trying to do out at Northerly Island.”

The Park District intends to revert the peninsula to its original 1920s design: a nature park for water sports and other outdoor activities.

The idea for the bird emergency room followed Park District public meetings in the winter and spring.

Fishermen at the meetings asked for better lake access. Camping groups begged for a place to stay overnight. And bird-watchers pleaded for a place to tend to injured fowl.

“Who knew this was such a problem?” Randall said of the bird injuries.

Chicago is on a major migratory route for several hundred species of birds, a survey by the Field Museum of Chicago says. Each year, thousands of birds hit skyscraper windows and die.

Part of the problem, biologists say, is that birds can’t tell the glass is there. During the day, the windows reflect trees and the outdoors. At night, indoor lights illuminate the inside of a building, and birds try to fly through the space or to land on plants inside.

Ornithologist Daniel Klem Jr. of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., estimates a billion birds a year die by flying into U.S. buildings. “It seems like an enormous number, but it’s really not,” Klem said. “Some cities, like Chicago, are starting to realize that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.”

Chicago’s Lights Out program encourages building owners to save birds -- and reduce electricity bills in the process -- by turning off lights after 11 p.m. during migratory seasons.

At a Chicago conference in the spring, architects and environmentalists discussed ways to redirect birds. Ideas included developing glass that reflected ultraviolet light into patterns visible to birds and retrofitting buildings with frosted windows.

The Lincoln Park Zoo covers most windows and a large pane of glass at its polar bear exhibit with a filmy material every spring and fall to deflect birds, said zoo spokeswoman Kelly McGrath.

“I’ve been there 10 years and we’ve always done it to help the birds. Our job is to ensure the safety of animals,” McGrath said. Besides, she noted, “our president is an ornithologist.”