4 ms·

Light pollution prolongs avian activity

115 points by gmays 1y ago

stevenwoo 1y ago
Light pollution affects behavior of most animals we bother to study, it's only one topic of many in the book but Ed Yong's 2022 book An Immense World covers this for insects in particular. Some of it can be mitigated mostly by simply changing the color of the light or frequency of flashing.
Workaccount2 1y ago
Super efficient LEDs have made this problem totally out of control. Incredibly bright while also being very cheap to run. Paranoid/careless jackasses are lining their houses with 100,000 lumen cool white prison lights they bought on amazon for $30. Parking lots are getting filled with ridiculously bright street lights because "Brighter = better? Right?". Just enough light to see? No! We need to recreate the sun for this vacant lot all night every night!
- soulofmischief 1y ago
  It's worse than that. The high-flicker, narrow-band LEDs used for most LED streetlights today create insanely bad color discrepancy and distortion due to motion. It's a crime against nature and a crime against humanity that cities have allowed such a scourge to proliferate, when we have the science and technology for much better LED street lights. It gets even worse because in order to make up for these discrepancies and distortion, manufacturers just.... turn them up brighter, fundamentally ignoring the problem and only making it worse. It's bad enough that this affects drivers and pedestrians, but think of all of the animals who don't get a say, and who are even more sensitive to the flicker and lack of color information.
phkahler 1y ago
Maybe this is contributing to the insect decline. More time when both birds and bugs are out.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ElijahLynn 1y ago
Light pollution is also inside our homes. Well before the sun rises and well after the sun sets, we have the power to flick a switch and have an instant Sun! I have to think that if the birds are chirping 50 minutes longer then what are humans doing? 50 minutes longer or even 100 minutes longer? And how does that affect our sleep which affects our mood which affects our communication and affects our world?
- AIPedant 1y ago
  Humans have been staying up late next to a bright light (fire) for longer than we've been Homo sapiens. Considering humans have unique physiological adaptations to smoke (heavy tear and mucus production) I think it's plausible that our circadian rhythms also adapted and aren't quite as sensitive to red/yellow light as other primates. Blue light, however...
jader201 1y ago
The original study published in Science [1] has a better title: Light pollution prolongs avian activity > They found that birds were generally vocal for nearly an hour longer in the presence of light pollution. Furthermore, birds that are more exposed, or entrained, to light were more affected, such as those with large eyes and open nests. The Gizmodo article takes a bit to get to the reference point, being light pollution (I originally mistakenly thought it was a relative to time). [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472
- dang 1y ago
  Ok we can use that title above. Thanks! (Submitted title was "Birds are singing an average of 50 minutes longer per day", which was already better than the baity title of the article - thanks gmays)
booleandilemma 1y ago
It also prolongs human activity.
Frieren 1y ago
What is the impact of an increase of energy spend each day by this birds? They need more food, so they will eat more insects and grain. I doubt that it is a negligible amount. It could easy affect the amount of birds that an ecosystem can host, and way more things down the line. All these rapid changes can mess up the equilibrium in our ecosystems. Light pollution also affects insect behavior. If light pollution makes birds consume more insects and it also reduces the number of insects it is an accumulative problem. - Light pollution is a driver of insect declines: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320719307797 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...
- Lammy 1y ago
  I don't even need to go as far as the birds and the bees. The modern pervasive light pollution affects my behavior. My city's streets feel like a movie set these nights in a really uncanny unreal way. LED lighting is too good, too cheap, makes it too easy to have way too much goddamn light in every corner of every street over every hour of every day. It feels like it's so machines can see better, not so I can see better.
  - stinos 1y ago
    makes it too easy to have way too much goddamn light in every corner of every street That's essentially correct, but modern tech also makes it relatively easy (and in the end cheaper compared to non-LED) to - make lights with a properly focused well directed beam instead of flooding the whole place; we have a new one close to our house and it sheds light only on the street itself to the point you can almost see a nice straight line where the light beam stops and beyond that line it's markedly darker than it used to be even though the light beam itself has a higher intensity - make lights which emit in wavelengths which are less environmentally harmful for flora/fauna - make each lantern remote controllable (on/off/dimming); main street lights here dim after 11pm and are truned off in all secondary streets (there's a website dedcated to listing the best models for all of this but I cannot find it anymore) The thing which is lacking here mostly is awareness and governments willing to implement this properly. We live in a rather small rural village which did implement all of this - too bad there's no research project assesing before and after but since it counters most of the negatives I assume it should turn out positive for the environment. Birds are definitely positively affected by it: execpt for owls I don't hear any singing in the middle of the night anymore. And in any case it feels pretty 'normal' to come home at night while it's properly dark.
Unirely01 1y ago
[dead]
itchingsphynx 1y ago
According to the study methods [1], data was taken from BirdWeather, which is crowdsourced from users running local BirdNET [2], including BirdNET-Pi and BirdNET-Go [3], which runs easily on most Raspberry Pi (including slowly on Zero 2 W). BirdNET has popped up a few times on HN [4]. [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472 [2] https://birdnet.cornell.edu/ https://birdnet.cornell.edu/ [3] https://github.com/Nachtzuster/BirdNET-Pi https://github.com/Nachtzuster/BirdNET-Pi and https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Birdnet&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
cluckindan 1y ago
Does it prolong activity, or enable prolonged activity? I’ve seen flocks of waterfowl fly along lit roads at night, taking sharp turns at intersections, seemingly navigating by the light patterns.
keyle 1y ago
I thought it was a good thing, it charged their batteries longer /s
blueflow 1y ago
Try to have a calm night near floodlights. They make the birds sing 24/7.
globular-toast 1y ago
It must have been around 15 years ago I first noticed birds singing in the dead of night near street lights. Light pollution is up there with noise pollution as my least favourite things about living in a society. Both seem to be mostly due to cars as it happens. It's kind of absurd that we talk about energy saving etc. but light up entire damn streets all through the night for no reason.
nathan_compton 1y ago
Great. More avian productivity! They were sleeping too much anyway.
RobotToaster 1y ago
Great, we're giving the birds insomnia too.

115 points by gmays 1y ago

Light pollution affects behavior of most animals we bother to study, it's only one topic of many in the book but Ed Yong's 2022 book An Immense World covers this for insects in particular. Some of it can be mitigated mostly by simply changing the color of the light or frequency of flashing.

Workaccount2 1y ago

Super efficient LEDs have made this problem totally out of control. Incredibly bright while also being very cheap to run. Paranoid/careless jackasses are lining their houses with 100,000 lumen cool white prison lights they bought on amazon for $30. Parking lots are getting filled with ridiculously bright street lights because "Brighter = better? Right?". Just enough light to see? No! We need to recreate the sun for this vacant lot all night every night!

soulofmischief 1y ago
It's worse than that. The high-flicker, narrow-band LEDs used for most LED streetlights today create insanely bad color discrepancy and distortion due to motion. It's a crime against nature and a crime against humanity that cities have allowed such a scourge to proliferate, when we have the science and technology for much better LED street lights. It gets even worse because in order to make up for these discrepancies and distortion, manufacturers just.... turn them up brighter, fundamentally ignoring the problem and only making it worse. It's bad enough that this affects drivers and pedestrians, but think of all of the animals who don't get a say, and who are even more sensitive to the flicker and lack of color information.

phkahler 1y ago

Maybe this is contributing to the insect decline. More time when both birds and bugs are out.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ElijahLynn 1y ago

Light pollution is also inside our homes. Well before the sun rises and well after the sun sets, we have the power to flick a switch and have an instant Sun! I have to think that if the birds are chirping 50 minutes longer then what are humans doing? 50 minutes longer or even 100 minutes longer? And how does that affect our sleep which affects our mood which affects our communication and affects our world?

AIPedant 1y ago
Humans have been staying up late next to a bright light (fire) for longer than we've been Homo sapiens. Considering humans have unique physiological adaptations to smoke (heavy tear and mucus production) I think it's plausible that our circadian rhythms also adapted and aren't quite as sensitive to red/yellow light as other primates. Blue light, however...

jader201 1y ago

The original study published in Science [1] has a better title: Light pollution prolongs avian activity > They found that birds were generally vocal for nearly an hour longer in the presence of light pollution. Furthermore, birds that are more exposed, or entrained, to light were more affected, such as those with large eyes and open nests. The Gizmodo article takes a bit to get to the reference point, being light pollution (I originally mistakenly thought it was a relative to time). [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472

dang 1y ago
Ok we can use that title above. Thanks! (Submitted title was "Birds are singing an average of 50 minutes longer per day", which was already better than the baity title of the article - thanks gmays)

booleandilemma 1y ago

It also prolongs human activity.

Frieren 1y ago

What is the impact of an increase of energy spend each day by this birds? They need more food, so they will eat more insects and grain. I doubt that it is a negligible amount. It could easy affect the amount of birds that an ecosystem can host, and way more things down the line. All these rapid changes can mess up the equilibrium in our ecosystems. Light pollution also affects insect behavior. If light pollution makes birds consume more insects and it also reduces the number of insects it is an accumulative problem. - Light pollution is a driver of insect declines: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320719307797 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...

Lammy 1y ago
I don't even need to go as far as the birds and the bees. The modern pervasive light pollution affects my behavior. My city's streets feel like a movie set these nights in a really uncanny unreal way. LED lighting is too good, too cheap, makes it too easy to have way too much goddamn light in every corner of every street over every hour of every day. It feels like it's so machines can see better, not so I can see better.
- stinos 1y ago
  makes it too easy to have way too much goddamn light in every corner of every street That's essentially correct, but modern tech also makes it relatively easy (and in the end cheaper compared to non-LED) to - make lights with a properly focused well directed beam instead of flooding the whole place; we have a new one close to our house and it sheds light only on the street itself to the point you can almost see a nice straight line where the light beam stops and beyond that line it's markedly darker than it used to be even though the light beam itself has a higher intensity - make lights which emit in wavelengths which are less environmentally harmful for flora/fauna - make each lantern remote controllable (on/off/dimming); main street lights here dim after 11pm and are truned off in all secondary streets (there's a website dedcated to listing the best models for all of this but I cannot find it anymore) The thing which is lacking here mostly is awareness and governments willing to implement this properly. We live in a rather small rural village which did implement all of this - too bad there's no research project assesing before and after but since it counters most of the negatives I assume it should turn out positive for the environment. Birds are definitely positively affected by it: execpt for owls I don't hear any singing in the middle of the night anymore. And in any case it feels pretty 'normal' to come home at night while it's properly dark.

Unirely01 1y ago

[dead]

itchingsphynx 1y ago

According to the study methods [1], data was taken from BirdWeather, which is crowdsourced from users running local BirdNET [2], including BirdNET-Pi and BirdNET-Go [3], which runs easily on most Raspberry Pi (including slowly on Zero 2 W). BirdNET has popped up a few times on HN [4]. [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472 [2] https://birdnet.cornell.edu/ https://birdnet.cornell.edu/ [3] https://github.com/Nachtzuster/BirdNET-Pi https://github.com/Nachtzuster/BirdNET-Pi and https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Birdnet&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

cluckindan 1y ago

Does it prolong activity, or enable prolonged activity? I’ve seen flocks of waterfowl fly along lit roads at night, taking sharp turns at intersections, seemingly navigating by the light patterns.

keyle 1y ago

I thought it was a good thing, it charged their batteries longer /s

blueflow 1y ago

Try to have a calm night near floodlights. They make the birds sing 24/7.

globular-toast 1y ago

It must have been around 15 years ago I first noticed birds singing in the dead of night near street lights. Light pollution is up there with noise pollution as my least favourite things about living in a society. Both seem to be mostly due to cars as it happens. It's kind of absurd that we talk about energy saving etc. but light up entire damn streets all through the night for no reason.

nathan_compton 1y ago

Great. More avian productivity! They were sleeping too much anyway.

RobotToaster 1y ago

Great, we're giving the birds insomnia too.