A quirky look at wildlife. To be taken with a pinch of salt, but with more than a grain of truth!

Bleep Bleep! Flash Flash! 'Here is the 6 o'clock news.' Oh, no! it's time to get up. Another day another dollar, but it doesn't feel like another day. It still feels like night-time, and in nature it still is.

Crawling out of bed in the dark to go to work, spending all day in artificial light and coming home in the dark is a recipe for the winter blues if ever there was one. In the greyest January for ten years it seems even worse. Everyone seems grouchy! Most people are rushing to the Internet, hunting for their dream holiday in the sunshine. Apparently 'night owls' like me suffer more than 'larks' like my husband. In the 21st century, many people miss out on true daylight and very few people living in the developed world actually experience real darkness, anymore than they know real silence. Subconsciously, though, we still value all three.

Watching daytime birds and nocturnal wildlife in our garden in the UK (at McWebbie's Wildlife Diner) brought home to me just how important daylight and darkness is to all of us. On grey days without so much as a glimmer of sunlight, how do birds and animals know it is sunset or sunrise? Yet they do, with an instinctive accuracy now lost to humans. So what is our dependence on artificial light doing to our wildlife?

There is evidence that it is having an adverse impact on many species. Increasingly, it is being seen as a health issue for people too. Are we a species apart, that can function regardless of natural light and darkness? I don't think so. We are not naturally nocturnal¹. Ask any night shift worker about their body clocks and sleeping and eating patterns and you will see what I mean. In Alaska, when winter days are very short indeed, many people experience a feeling of 'cabin fever' or go 'stir-crazy', especially those not born to it.

We are so used to putting on lights when it is dark that we lose our sense of time. Satellite pictures of the earth show pretty clearly maps of the heavily populated, artificially lit areas of the developed world. We marvel at the 'view' of twinkling lights seen from tall buildings and the skylines lit up by skyscrapers. We revel in Christmas lights all over our houses and add security lighting as a precaution. Animals and birds rely on sunrise and sunset to set their body clocks and our lifestyles appear to be interfering with that.

Nocturnal Wildlife

Last year, watching badgers, foxes and other nocturnal wildlife every night in a suburban setting, it was noticeable that halogen and other security lights sent them scurrying for darkness or prevented them coming out altogether. In natural surroundings they appeared at dusk, but not until later in suburban areas. Street lights and car lights disturbed them. At a time when they desperately needed to feed, they were being restricted by human activity. One of our badgers, Boss Man, could clearly be seen hovering in the darkness waiting for lights to go out — and very grumpy he was, too, when he had to wait! It was also obvious that they disappeared from view just before dawn, when they would become clearly visible to predators. In the darkness, badgers and foxes are like ghosts floating in and out of sight (as are owls) and they can feed in peace. Even slugs come out after dark and disappear into the undergrowth and underground before 7am (at least, mine do!).

Daylight Species and Migration

On the other hand, most birds feed from dawn to sunset, settling in to roost as the sun goes down, even when we have not seen a glimmer. However, where there is bright lighting they will feed later, sing later and, in some cases, start nesting in autumn instead of spring. Confused? They certainly are. More worrying is the issue of city lighting in high-rise buildings, which is affecting bird migration. Many birds migrate at night, when most predators are asleep. There is less disturbance and they can navigate by the moon and stars. Stargazers will tell you that looking at the sky anywhere near a city is hopeless. Where I live at least two-thirds of the sky from the horizon up is tinted orange from street lighting and clear, starlit, moonlit nights are a rare sight. We are more likely to see aeroplane landing lights winking at us!

City Lighting

In Toronto, Canada, years of research have led to a change in lighting practices. Some 10,000 birds die there each year in the spring and autumn migrations. That is a terrifying loss, especially if a species is already endangered from other causes. This is repeated in most migration flyways. They are attracted to the lights, blundering into windows and buildings, confused and disoriented, to end up dead as food for city scavengers: cats, foxes, owls and the like. Throughout Canada and America, hundreds of thousands of birds have died. This is not a problem peculiar to that continent.

Lost and Confused

I can't find my way round a supermarket or a shopping mall without signs and who can find their way round the motorways without maps or SatNav? We would be lost (literally) without them. So, remember these are often young birds migrating for the first time, with only instinct (and sometimes parents) to guide them. Imagine being urged by your instinct to migrate, only to find that the natural guidelines and mental maps are destroyed or disturbed by lights on buildings, airports, oil rigs, lighthouses, etc which would not be there in the natural order of things.

Turtles

Imagine, for a moment, being a tiny, cute marine turtle, one of thousands hatching from their shells on beaches in Greece and Florida and many other turtle-hatching sites. No Mum to guide you, 'cus she left after depositing her eggs. 'Pip, pip, gotta get outa here, gotta get to the sea, and swim I know not where. Help!' Some five species of marine turtles hatch on Florida beaches. The reflected light on the sea has been their guide for thousands, perhaps millions of years, and these tiny cute creatures race towards it to catch the tide. Out in to the big wide world, many will return years later to lay their eggs on 'their' beach. Unfortunately, now many females will not even brave the lights to lay their eggs. This happens on many other beaches, too.

Our obsessive need for lighting has led hotels and holiday complexes to light up whole beaches and airport lighting has added to the distraction. They give these tiny creatures confusing signals, like traffic lights telling you to go in two directions at once but with no indication of which is the way forward and which is a dead end. Many head up the beaches instead of down to the sea because their instincts to follow light are so strong. They die in the process, crossing roads, attracted by the bright lights in houses. Some airports have been persuaded to stop night flights and have cut their lighting in an effort to reduce these deaths, but there is still much to do.

'Like moths around a flame...'

Bats and moths are attracted to lights, too. Loss of moth species in some areas is attributed to lighting upsetting their natural rhythms. Reproduction in many species, such as frogs, is affected by too much unnatural light, as are sleeping and finding food. Perhaps humans are suffering too and are just becoming aware of it.

There is one other reason to rethink our use of light. The savings in energy use and cost are enormous — in Toronto, many fewer birds died when one building alone shut off its lights, saving $200,000 per year in energy costs. Moves are afoot to have lighting switched off from 11pm to 5am in Toronto during spring and early summer and again in late summer and autumn. Trials have already reduced the numbers of birds killed this way and many other cities are looking at the problem. However, much more could be done.

The Future

The natural world has always depended on balance: hot and cold, wet and dry, darkness and daylight. We are becoming aware that human activity is causing flooding, drought and changing temperatures, so perhaps we should now look at our light use and have more respect for both our nocturnal and daytime friends. Closing curtains and blinds at night and using security lights that only respond to movement, directing street lighting downwards instead of up into the sky and turning off unnecessary night lighting in commercial buildings would achieve a great deal. Saving a few pounds or dollars on the bills surely wouldn't come amiss, either!

A new high-rise building has just opened in my city and already car drivers are complaining that the mass of lighting is affecting their driving, blinding them and causing a distraction. What might it be doing to birds in the future?

I miss the nocturnal visitors at our Diner. They are sensibly tucked up in the warm but will emerge again when conditions are right. The birds and animals visiting in the daytime have no time to play and lark around. It is too important to get food to see them through the dark and often bitterly cold nights. I have always felt I was meant to hibernate and sometimes going to bed at sunset seems a really good idea. Not possible in today's world, but a rethink of our habits might be worthwhile.

Hmm! The sun has come out briefly and I am off to bask in its rays and get myself some Vitamin D before darkness descends again! Perhaps I should listen to my body clock a little more. Who says animals are dumb?

Websailor

26.01.06 Front Page

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