Tweets

Browsing through the latest New Scientist(March 18) I came acroos a couple of
discusions about light pollution which reminded me an earlier exchange about
watching gulls at night.

The British Trust for Ornithology reports thousands of robins becoming
confused and serenading security lights in suburban England. The second item
was a story oin bats and mercury vapor light. The story indicated that the
density of bats around mercury lights was several times that of the numbers
around newer more efficient sodium vapor light. The white mercury light
attracts more insects than the yellow sodium lights.

This made me wonder about night feeding of birds, particularly insect eating
ones. Will the change from mercury to sodium affect behavior, density. Is
the increasingf light pollution altering birds light cycle. I know the exhibt
birds at the zoo are affected if we turn the ights on to clean or do
maintenance. Anybody have any thoughts, observations?

Mike Waller
Woodland Park Zoo
MWKG at aol.com