October 3, 2023 • 37 mins
What if there was a way to save thousands of innocent birds from lethal collisions with our urban glass structures each year? In this episode of EcoSpeak CLE, we head to Lake Erie Nature and Science Center to speak with wildlife rehabilitation specialist Tim Jasinski, one of the founders of Lights Out Cleveland. Tim shares the challenges migratory birds face in navigating the dangerous cityscape of Cleveland and how we all help make our community more feather-friendly.
Tim takes us behind the scenes of Lights Out Cleveland and The Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, revealing the dedication and commitment of the volunteers who roam downtown streets in the early morning hours during spring and fall migrations to rescue and rehabilitate injured birds. In our Tip Time, Tim shares what to do if you find an injured bird or animal and some of his favorite spots around town to bird watch.
Lights Out Cleveland needs more volunteers. You can make a difference by becoming a Bird Collision Monitoring Crew member. Monitoring and collection volunteers are responsible for monitoring specific areas throughout Downtown Cleveland, collecting/transporting both living and dead birds, and recording data. Monitoring happens between 5:00 am – 8:30 am, March 15 – ~June 1 and August 15 – mid-November. Opportunities are available seven days per week. To become a volunteer, you will need to join the Cleveland Metroparks volunteer system.
Guest:
Tim Jasinski, Wildlife Rehabilitation Specialist with Lake Erie Nature and Science Center and Founder of Lights Out Cleveland
Resources:
Lights out Cleveland
Lake Erie Nature and Science Center
Become a Lights Out Cleveland volunteer
Feather Friendly window film
Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative
Make your house more bird-friendly.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, where the
EcoCurious explore the uniqueand thriving environmental
community here in Northeast Ohio.
My name is Diane Bicke and myproducer is Greg Rotuno.
Together, we bring youinspiring stories from local
sustainability leaders andinvite you to connect, learn and
live with our community andplanet in mind.
(00:25):
Hello friends, thanks forjoining us.
We are going to start today'spodcast with a quick
announcement, a reminder for youto sign up for our next EcoMeat
CLE event, which is going to beon Tuesday, October 17th at
Great Lakes Brewing Company.
Door is open at five o'clockand we are featuring a local
(00:46):
food panel of speakers with somefarmers, and we'll be talking
about local food policy and ourlocal food system.
And, of course, we will havelocal food so please join us and
beer.
So please join us.
Tickets are $15 on Eventbrite.
Okay, so it is late Septemberand we are in the heart of the
(01:07):
fall bird migration season.
Millions of birds, especiallysongbirds, are migrating through
Ohio on their way south.
This migration usually takesplace at night.
Birds can fly hundreds of milesin one night and thousands of
miles to their destinations, butthey face a huge threat along
the way, and that threat is thebrightly lit buildings in
(01:28):
downtown Cleveland with theirreflective glass, which is very
disorienting to the birds andcauses them to smash into the
glass or circle the buildingsuntil they fall from exhaustion.
And it's not a small number ofbirds that are hurt or killed
flying into buildings.
Just ask any of the volunteersfrom Lights Out Cleveland who
have been roaming the downtownstreets in the early morning
(01:51):
hours during migration season torescue injured birds and
collect dead ones since 2017.
And we have one of thosevolunteers with us today,
Speaking with us about theperils faced by migratory birds
and the work being done to helpthem is Tim Chisinski, the
founder of Lights Out Clevelandand a wildlife rehabilitation
(02:11):
specialist with the Lake ErieNature and Science Center in Bay
Village, which is CuyahogaCounty's only wildlife
rehabilitation center.
Welcome, Tim.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Hello, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Thanks for joining us .
I read that you once said thatdowntown Cleveland is more
lethal to avian species in anyother city in Ohio.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And why?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So there's many reasons why, but one of the main
reasons is that Cleveland isright on the lake, right on the
shores of Lake Erie, and thebirds are.
It's a big barrier for birdswhen they're crossing over,
doing their migration, and soeither they they're tired from
flying over the lake and theyget right to downtown and it's a
(02:55):
large city and it's it can bevery brightly lit.
So just being on the lake frontis is one of the main problems.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
And they're attracted to the light.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, they're attracted to.
We don't really know why, butthis birds and insects are
attracted to light and it's justthe white lights specifically,
and they are just, they flytowards it, and so that can
cause issues when there's a lotof glass behind that light.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And so what's happening?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So typically these birds are migrating at night and
they're they're coming to thecity and if the city is lit up
they just are drawn to that,versus going, versus to continue
their migration.
So they get down into the cityand they're circling and
circling, just trying to figureout what to do, because normally
they probably didn't encountercities before, and so they're
(03:41):
just circling trying to figureout what to do because they
never, may never, have seenglass or buildings or anything
before.
Because a lot of these birdsare migrating from the boreal
forests of Canada for the firsttime, specifically in fall.
They hatch this year up upthere and they're heading down
and they're just they're,they're lost and they're
confused, and you know thenthey're, they're in trouble,
they're trapped in the cityscapeand and they're running into
(04:03):
the glass because thisreflective it is.
We often get people here calland right here comments that
birds are stupid because theyhit glass.
People run into glass too.
So if you ever see constructionsites, they have like tape over
the glass so people don't runinto it.
It's just a thing that theydidn't evolve with.
You know, they don't understandthe concept of glass.
They see glass as either acontinuous habitat, so they see
(04:27):
trees, trees and then more trees.
But we see trees, trees, glasstrees because of the reflection.
So they are just followingthose trees and they go from one
tree to another and they don'tunderstand that there's glass
there, so they hit it and thenthey're injured or dead
immediately.
It's unfortunate.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, I first heard of lights out Cleveland several
years ago from a friend, shirleyTomicello, who's active in your
organization.
She's with the Cleveland lawdepartment and also a bird lover
, and she told me about thisorganization where volunteers
are kind of combing the streetsof Cleveland in the early
morning hours, like between fiveand eight AM, and they're
(05:08):
you're picking up dead birds andinjured birds, and by the
dozens and by the hundreds.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Oh yeah, I mean on average for a full year.
Lights out.
Cleveland volunteers collectaround 3,000 songbirds down
there Get out.
Yeah, about two thirds arefound dead, unfortunately, but
it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It is a lot.
So you're collecting theinjured birds and bringing them
all here.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, so all the live birds and dead birds actually
are brought here to the centerso we can process them.
The live birds get medicationsand obviously we can go into
that in a little bit.
The dead ones go into thefreezer with the hopes that
they'll go to a museum orsomewhere where they can be used
as for science, for, you know,for the future, so they're not
thrown away or eaten by gullsdowntown.
(05:57):
They're actually can be usedand repurposed for to study them
.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Wow.
So what kind of birds aremigrating?
Right now it's late September.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So we're getting mostly warblers right now.
The early migrant warblers likeBay Brezza warblers, black Pole
warblers, tennessee,commonwealth, throat, nashville,
red Stards, black ThreadedBlues and the trickling of
sparrows are starting to comethrough.
So we're getting our firstLincoln sparrows now.
A few white threaded sparrowsare coming through.
(06:29):
We haven't had the influx yet.
That's usually end of Octoberfor those guys, but we're
getting mostly warblers rightnow and some.
Our first yellow-bellied sapsucker the other day, rosebesser
Grospeaks.
So there's birds we kind ofcall super colliders and those
are birds that are always foundin any collision program.
(06:50):
Just there's a lot of them andit's just something about those
birds are more prone tocollisions.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Wow, do you know, have an estimate, how many birds
you have at the Wildlife Centernow?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I don't have an exact amount.
We released a bunch today but Imean every day can be different
, but on average for fall weadmit anywhere from like five to
150 live birds a day, dependingon weather and other factors
involved, how many people wehave down there.
But fall is busy becausethere's a couple reasons.
One is that all the young birdsare coming down for their first
(07:24):
flight, so there's more birdsthan there would be in the
spring.
And then also the migrationpatterns are different in the
fall.
So Black Pole Warbler might goup through the South America,
through Mexico and up towardsthe breeding forest, the border
forest in Canada and Alaska, inthe spring, but in the fall
they're going to take aSoutheast migration to the coast
, coming through Ohio.
(07:44):
So we get very few Black PoleWarblers in the spring but a lot
of them in the fall.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Walk us through what happens with how many you know
lights out, cleveland, yourvolunteers what happens?
Do you meet up on 9th andCarnegie or something at five in
the morning?
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, so it really depends.
But typically we have a meetinglocation, we have leads for the
morning, so we have volunteersthat are seasons doing this, so
they're our lead for the morning, so they kind of organize the
collection for the morning.
So they'll text the team and say, hey, we're meeting here at
this time and they'll all gettogether, get all the supplies
that they need and then theyhead out and start monitoring
(08:23):
the certain routes downtownlooking for injured or stunned
or dead birds and we go,typically lights out, cleveland
starts March 15th through thebeginning of June and we start
August 15th and we go throughmid-November and so we go every
single day, unless there's likesevere weather that prevents us
(08:43):
from going down there.
But yeah, we're collecting everysingle day and we need more
volunteers.
So that's a good thing we'redoing this.
But the goal is to have atleast eight people a day 12
people a day really, ideallywhere you can do all the
different routes and have enoughpeople to collect the amount of
birds, because sometimes birdswill be found on one route and
(09:06):
they're not found on the otherroute and we don't really know
why that happens.
But one route could have a tonof birds and others are just
vacant of birds.
So the more people we have downthere, the more coverage the
better we have of collecting allthe birds that are affected.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I can't imagine it's easy to get enough volunteers to
help you One.
It's very heartbreaking work, Iimagine.
Yes, the hours are kind ofrough.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah.
Seven days a week, it is.
So in 2017, when we startedthis, I went down every day and
then came to work every day, soit's a volunteer thing.
Then I came to work every day,so I'm really tiring 12 more
days.
Yeah, basically, but yeah, soit's a lot of work, it is early
mornings, but you're savingbirds that need help, so if you
weren't down there doing it,they would be either they would
(09:52):
be dead from flying into anotherwindow, because even if they do
fly away, there's other glasseverywhere down there.
The cleanup crews sweep them uplive or dead, put them in a
trash, and then gulls get them.
So gulls are a very smart andintelligent bird.
We have in the lake that theylearned to monitor these
buildings themselves for birdsthat are collision victims.
(10:15):
So they'll actually fly downpast Rocket Mortgage, fieldhouse
or another larger building andjust scoop up all the birds that
may have hit that morning andeat them all up at one time Wow,
so yeah, Is there traininginvolved for your volunteers?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
There is how to pick up an injured bird so you don't
injure it more there is.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
So all the volunteer aspect of Lights Out Cleveland
is now run by ClevelandMetroparks, so they have an
awesome volunteer system thereand there is a training videos
you have to watch and there's alittle quiz at the end.
But basically, if you want tobecome a Lights Out Cleveland
volunteer, go to ClevelandMetroparks website and look
under Volunteer Opportunitiesand there should be a little job
(10:56):
in quotes post for Lights OutCleveland and you fill that out
and then you can get put on theschedule and you can pick the
days you want to go down, and soit's really easy.
It's a super easy process andit is.
The drawbacks of Lights OutCleveland are there are a lot of
dead birds and bats that wefind down there and it's a lot
of walking and early morning.
But it is rewarding that youcan not only save birds that are
(11:20):
alive, that you can rescue, butalso all the birds that are
picked up that are dead arestill going to be used for
scientific collection and notthrown away or eaten by gulls,
so you're still helping.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And you get your 20,000 steps in for the day.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, on average, most of the volunteers, at least
when I was actively doing it.
Often it's about 10 milesminimum a day you're doing down
there.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Wow, tell us about how Lights Out Cleveland was
started.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So there was a woman named Sue Roman and she worked
at one of the buildings indowntown Cleveland, the 200
public square, the HuntonBuilding.
She worked as a security guardand she would actually bring in
a ton of birds every spring andfall that she collected down
there while she was working.
She would pick up these birdsand sneak them into a box and
hide them in her locker and thenbring them to us at the end of
(12:06):
the day after her shift, and shewas really passionate about
this.
So I really deem her the onethat started Lights Out
Cleveland thought process, andso she'd bring the birds here
and then we rebuilt the liveones and released them, and then
the dead ones would go to theCleveland Museum of Natural
History, where Chief WildlifeOfficer Harvey Webster was
working then, and he says thisis a problem, we need to get
(12:28):
this going, we need to get this,we need to do something in
Cleveland, and so he tried toorganize a see, if I can say it,
were there other Lights Outorganizations in existence at
the time.
Lights Out Columbus, I think,was first, yeah, and so we kind
of wanted to piggyback onbasically, chicago's Lights Out,
cleveland Lights Out, lightsOut program, and so we wanted to
(12:51):
do what they were doing inChicago in Cleveland.
And so Harvey tried to get thisgoing.
He wanted to call it smart,light, safe flight and that's
hard to say and he was trying toget things going by
extrapolating data from othercities to show, hey, it's a
problem here.
But then they would getquestions from building owners,
well, how do you have data toshow that?
And they would go, oh no, notreally.
And back then we just rushedabout city.
(13:14):
We just got the lights on.
Why are we trying to turn themback off?
Kind of thing.
So it just didn't really work.
And so that was in the early2000s, 2006, 2004, or somewhere
around there, when Sue Roman wascollecting these birds.
And so then in 2016, at OhioWild Life Rehabilitation
Association conference, mattSchumar from Ohio Bird
Conservation Initiative did atalk about Lights Out and what
(13:37):
to do, and I ran up to him afterthe conference.
I'm like yo, we need to getthis going in Cleveland.
He's like whoa, who's thiscrazy guy Like?
I'm like really obviouslyenergetic and I talk really fast
.
And so he's like OK, we'llfigure something out.
And so then, because thatspring we had 18 American
woodcock brought in fromdowntown, just from the general
public, because here at thecenter we don't have resources
to pick up animals so the publicbrought in 18 woodcock alone in
(14:00):
that spring and I'm just likethis is stupid, we need to get
this, we need to do something.
This is preventable, let's dosomething.
So then I harassed Matt thatfall and then in that early
spring of 2017, like usuallyJanuary February I got together
with Harvey and Dr Annie Jones,former curator of ornithology at
the Klee Museum of NaturalHistory, and a couple of the
(14:21):
collaborators and said how arewe going to do this?
And I said let's do this.
So I got a bunch of bird, herfriends and Cleveland zookeepers
to help start a monitoringprogram to figure out where
these birds are and wherethey're hitting and how we can
help with the data that SueRoman gave us, where she would
say.
I said where are these birdshitting?
So she's like oh, I don't know.
She's going crazier than I am.
(14:41):
So I'm like hold on.
So let me write this down.
So we wrote it down on whereshe would find all these birds.
And then Andy Jones and Imapped it out kind of on where
we should start looking forthese birds and that's where it
started.
So everyone gives me credit forstarting, even though I
technically did, you know, withthe monitoring program.
But Harvey Webster is reallythe dream.
I'm like getting this going, soI always give him credit.
(15:03):
He was gives me credit, so it'sboth of us that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
The other aspect of lights out Cleveland is to get
the building owner owners toturn off their lights from
midnight to what dawn.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
How?
How's that going?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So that's not my part of the job.
My job is to take care of thebirds and we have collaborator
collaborators like Matt Schumarwith Oha bird conservation
initiative.
Harvey Webster is the retiredchief wildlife officer for
Cleveland Museum of NaturalHistory, and a couple other
people like you mentionedShirley Thomas oh, she's awesome
and so there's a bunch ofdifferent people that are in
(15:37):
collaboration to Talk to buildbuilding owners and managers on
what we're recommending, so theydo all the big work there.
I don't do that part of it, sowe leave it to the experts for
that.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
So what do you recommend then for building
owners, especially downtownbuildings, high-rises we're
talking mainly right really any.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Honestly, it's any building that has glass, okay,
that can be.
That's either reflective or alarge pane of glass,
specifically near Habitat.
So bushes, trees, grass, thingslike that, where where the
birds are feeding, so they'remore likely to hit on windows
adjacent to Habitat becausethat's where they're hanging out
.
So I see any any building thatwants to, even if they don't
(16:16):
have any, you know, windows ifthey want to reduce lighting.
Just you could reach out tolights out Cleveland through a
how bird conservation initiativewebsite.
It's a hot lights out org.
You could just go to thatwebsite and an email Matt
Schumar and he can get in touchwith you and, you know, give you
recommendations or whatever onwhat we can, what you can do to
help in your own building.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
So we encourage managers of buildings and, you
know, owners to reach out to usto see how they can help in the
springtime there's a blue jaythat always you know nests and
this one tree I have frontAlways smashes into my window
and I've tried everything tokind of reduce the Reflectivity
of the glass, like shutting theblinds and putting strings up,
(16:59):
and but is there another way toTo kind of make the glass not
reflective?
So that's a good question thatcould work in my house but also
like big commercial buildingssure?
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, so the, there's two.
There's another reason I forgotto mention why birds hit glass.
And it's there.
They're attacking thereflection.
So the jay you just mentionedis angry at the jay that's in
his territory.
So he's not actually hit in thewindow because he's dumb or
he's, so he doesn't understandthat it's, you know, doesn't
understand the concept glass.
He's actually seeing his ownreflection and trying to chase
that bird away from histerritory and they don't leave
(17:31):
because it's its reflection.
So he's, he's just all day.
This happens typically with withRobbins Cardinals, american
Goldfinches, scarlet Tangers,any brightly, brightly colored
birds.
This happens.
We get a lot of spring calls,especially starts and usually
March or April, like people calland they say I got this bird
doing the weirdest thing.
I'm like can I guess what it is?
And they're like, yeah, I'mlike is he attacking your window
(17:51):
?
She's like yeah, how did youknow?
And it's just, that's aseasonal thing and so they just
they're attacking theirreflection.
So basically to answer aquestion, breaking up the
reflection is the best way to doit.
It doesn't always work withthose kind of birds because
they're just, they still get,still gonna see their reflection
.
But what we recommend with yourown house or large buildings
downtown is using any birdcollision film that you can get.
(18:15):
There's two main companies thatsell it is Kaleid escape and
feather friendly.
They're both great companies.
We work very closely with Paulfrom feather friendly here.
We're actually gonna betreating our building here
eventually with with withfeather friendly, because it's
you know, we do have collisionshere.
Any basically any building orstructure has glass is gonna
have collisions.
(18:36):
Most of the collisions thathappen in North America are from
residential houses, so the thebuilding high rises downtown do
certainly pose a problem, butit's majority more jordily.
That's not even a real word.
Most of the collisions happenat residential houses.
So anything you can do at yourown house, you can go to feather
(18:57):
friendly org and researchresidential Window treatment.
So basically there's there'sdifferent ways you can do it and
different things, but there'sbasically fretted dots that go
on the outside of the windowthat break up the reflection.
So it's recommended that everytwo by two inches of the window
is covered.
Long-term study used to been toevery two by four inches, but
(19:18):
then we realized hummingbird wasstill getting through that.
So it's recommend now thatevery two by two inches are
covering the window and thatbreaks of a reflection and it's
proven to be really, reallysuccessful.
And it's it's, it's, it'shighly recommended to reach out
to either collat, escape orfeather friendly to treat your
windows at home.
And we often hear here peoplewill call and say I had a bird
(19:39):
hit my window.
It's and this is the first timeit's like, not the first time
you've noticed you've had toglass up, there's birds hitting
that window and so just becauseyou didn't notice doesn't mean
there's others happening.
So it's easy, you just, youjust.
It comes in little, eitherlittle strips or large pieces of
Plastic that you basically puton the window, and then you
remove the layer of the stickypart and just a little dacha
(20:03):
left on the window, and so it'sreally effective.
I.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Are there some buildings in downtown Cleveland
that are worse than others, whenit comes to just there?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
there certainly can be and you know we definitely
don't want to building shame anybuildings that are down there
because now we can't do it.
It's not how, but basically anybuilding has large amounts of
glass that's reflective and hashabitat, is is, you know, is
going to be problematic, so buteven just small little windows
can be.
So you know, generally we wemonitor Most of downtown of what
(20:38):
we can cover with the peoplethat we have and any really, we
find birds on a lot of places.
So basically, the larger theamount of glass and the more
habitat around is you'll findmore collisions there.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Okay, well, I did read that rocket mortgage field
house was Is now participatingin the program by turning off
their lights, so that's got tobe a huge it is.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
They're great people.
They've been working with MattSchumar and Harvey and the other
collaborators to figure outwhat, what to do.
They know that birds hit theirwindows and they want to help,
which is awesome.
So, you know, haven't you know?
Knowing that you, you havepeople like that, that that say
okay, we know it's a problem,what can we do to help?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
is awesome.
I ask you how many birds you'vecollected this year so far?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I don't remember offhand, I haven't looked at the
data, but it, you know, fall onaverage.
Typically you get about 800 toa thousand nine hundred birds or
so in the spring and about Twothousand twenty five hundred in
the fall.
So it really depends, but it'sstarting to pick up.
We had a 45 live bird day lastweek and that you know to other
(21:39):
rehabilitators like, oh my gosh,I can't believe you get that
many birds.
I'm like that's not a big deal.
45 is easy to deal with.
I mean, you know we're kind ofset up in our, in our rehab
center, where we have cagesready For the birds for the next
day.
So as long as we're not alreadyloaded which does happen we
have cages already pre-cleanedand ready.
So when the volunteers bringthe birds in for the morning,
all you have to do is fill outtheir paperwork, get their
(22:00):
medications and then get theircages, you know, with the food
and everything's already set up.
So it's a pretty quick process.
So we've been able to getpretty good system going.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Okay, can't wait to hear more about that process.
But first I want to hear moreabout how someone like yourself
Becomes a wildlife Recitationspecialist, or what was your
journey to this role along.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I'm old, I'm 45.
I'm gonna be 45 in October andI've I've been involved with
wildlife since I was little, andso I would find sick cardinals
or something when I was likeSeven and I would take care of
them illegally back in the 80swhere you know, you know rehab
centers like we do now.
So and then just just had that,I've always had animals, I've
always taken care of animals.
(22:44):
So I In the late mid 90s I meta rehabilitator that was
licensed to do raccoons and shehad friends that did raptors,
and so that I met the MadonnaRaptor Center folks.
There, you know they would sendme out to catch Raptors that
were injured.
I'm pretty quick and so I canchase things down and catch them
pretty quickly.
So I would, you know, catch upCooper's Hawk and take it out to
(23:06):
Laura and missy over there atMadonna Raptor Center, and and
then I just became friends withthem and then I just learned
about just I just got into thatinto the group of all the
rehabilitators and then Istarted volunteering.
I brought an injured HarryWoodpecker here that hit a
window, ironically In 2007, Ithink it was, and so that
started volunteering 2008, andthen I just never left.
(23:28):
So, yeah, it's, it's.
I didn't go to college.
I learned everything on my ownjust by studying wildlife and
being a nerd studying birds andall the different native
creatures in Ohio and Just kindof I just I bred cage birds and
in and grade school and highschool and so I just learned how
to just do all that stuff juston my own and so then I became a
volunteer here in 2008 and thenI was a seasonal back then.
(23:50):
It was a seasonal position in2010.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
You didn't leave until they hired you is right,
basically, yeah, where'd yougrow up with town?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Parmaites just a little.
I actually technically grew upin Maple Heights, but then we
moved to Parma in 1991, and soI'd been in local ever since
that first little sparrow thatyou brought home?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
How did you know how to take care of it?
What did you do for it?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I just offered it food and rest and yeah, I
remember specific one was acardinal, for sure, I remember
the male cardinal that probablyhad a window, who knows?
And yeah, just took care of soyou bring a bird here.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
It's been traumatized .
It hit a building Middle of thenight, wakes up here, do you?
They're in pain, what?
How do you treat just how doyou make them comfortable?
How do you take away their pain?
And how?
I mean how?
You can't put a splint on awing.
You can, you can, yeah so.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So the number one really rule with with wildlife
rehabilitation is, if you havean injured or sick or orphan
animal, keeping a warm, dark,quiet place until you can get to
treatment for from a licensedRehabilitator.
So the main thing we do downthere in downtown and I've
taught the volunteers how toreduce stress on the birds so we
capture them with withbutterfly nets, um I, and then
(25:02):
we place them in brown paperbags that are made with lights
out Cleveland information thatwe collect down there, um, about
the bird and then we transferthem to the car or someone's car
as soon as possible to let themrest, because obviously went
through a lot hitting the windowand then a big monster picks
you up and they think they'regoing to get eaten.
They don't know we're trying tohelp.
So you get them into a box orget them to the bag, get them
(25:24):
back to a car, let them restwhile you're continuing, you're
monitoring for the morning, andthen once they come here, we let
them rest again because it'syou know, obviously the drive
here is stressful.
So we bring them here, let themrest and then, once they're
rested here, we give them about15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes
depending, and then weadminister medications to the
birds and that helps reduceswelling of the brain and so,
(25:45):
basically, when a bird hits awindow, um, it doesn't die from
a broken neck, they die fromcranial swelling.
It's basically like brainbleeding.
So, um, in order to reduce thepain and swelling, you give them
anti-inflammatories to helpreduce that Uh, and that that
really really helps.
So that early you can get abird treated, the better chance
it has.
So that's number one thing isso when they get here, we let
(26:08):
them rest for a little bit, thenwe administer the medications
and everything's really quick.
So a lot of times news outletswill come and want to video and
see things and I'm just like getthe bird in the bag quick and
it's like under a few seconds totreat these birds.
And that's because we don'twant to stress them out.
You know they don't know we'retrying to help.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
So oftentimes when people bring an animal here to
the center, um, you know they'repetting it or talking to it and
they think that's helping.
But I, I I switched around onthem and I say it would be like
if you got injured in a T-Rexpicked you up and was trying to
talk to you and say you're goingto be okay, how would you feel
I'm going to eat and I'm dead?
So state of shock a state ofshock Correct, and so, um,
oftentimes, when people see abird in its eyes or closing,
(26:46):
they think that that's, that'sactually comfortability, but
that's actually high stress.
So birds are their bodiesstarting to shut down because of
stress.
So reducing stress is thenumber one thing.
So that's what we do is reducestress.
So the, the, the medicationshelp.
Another thing that helps is iswe have the setups um designed
for the bird to succeed.
So you know they don't want tobe here, obviously, in captivity
(27:06):
, Um, so we set the enclosuresup with to make them feel
comfortable.
It's covered, so there's not alight getting in there, so
they're not able to see out, sothey're not trying to escape.
And, um, we, some of thespecies like morning warblers,
Connecticut warblers, yellowthroats, wrens those guys like
to be in in thick stuff, they'reskulky, they kind of like to
hide, and so if you don't putvegetation in there, they're a
(27:27):
little bit more stressed outthat way.
So those species will get abranch with a bunch of leaves on
it, Um, and that they can hidethere.
And then we offer insects um orother other things that they
eat, um in the enclosure to helpthem feel comfortable.
And because of all, that wehave a really good success rate
with with the released bird, soit it works out well.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
That's cool.
And you do all this in thebasement of the nature center
here.
How many people do you haveworking with you?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So there's there's there's five staff members from
kind of that right um in the sixactually in in wildlife and, um
, there's me and uh two otherpart time, two other full time
people um in wildlife, and thenthere's there's uh four, uh part
time, and so then they some ofthose help in rehab and do
(28:13):
education programs and also helpwith our educational animals,
and then others help and justrehab, and that's I'm the only
one that does only rehab.
So, um, the wildlife rehabspecialist here, so I run rehab
along with my coworker, kyleKoprowski, so he helps down
there too, um, and we just we doit together.
And then we have a ton ofvolunteers and interns that help
.
So it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
What advice do you have, if, if people find an
injured animal on the road orwhatever, what should they do?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
The main thing we're always educating on is put if
you can safely put the animalinto enclosure, like a box or a
shoe box or something like that,with no food or water, in a
warm, dark, quiet place, don'tdo anything else.
No food, no water.
Um, because often people wantto help and they try to look up
on Google what to do.
And if you Google, if I flat myarms fast enough, can I fly?
(29:02):
It's probably yes, on theresomewhere so you can find
unbiasedly any information youwant on there that's going to
fit your narrative.
So you don't want to trustGoogle with how to care for
wildlife.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So basically, don't do it.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, call a licensed rehabilitator and then we can
instruct you what to do, causewe often have people that are
well-meaning, people that do thewrong thing, and we had a
person today that called aboutan animal they've had for three,
five weeks now, and the weightof the animal was incredibly low
for what it should be, and theymeant well, but that brought it
(29:34):
here or called first cause.
It's something that we don'ttake here, um, but always call
licensed rehabilitator cause.
They're going to have theinformation.
That's true, and and what to doand what number should people
call?
So our number here is440-871-2900.
That's the main line to the toLake Ernie Trian Science Center.
So that'll go right to thefront desk and they'll answer
(29:55):
the phone.
And if they don't answerthere's different prompts you
can put to go to wildlife andthat's extension 204.
So you just leave a message andwe can call you back between
nine and four, um every day ofthe week, um every week of the
year.
We're here every single day.
Um often people you know haveholidays that they can take off,
but the animals need to becared for.
So the wildlife staff is hereyear round, every weather
(30:18):
doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah, it's like the sewer district.
I went to the clean water festover the weekend.
They're like the water doesn'tstop flowing.
We got to be here all the time,yeah, year round, 24 seven.
So um, I appreciate you callingme back so fast.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, we do, and that's one of the compliments we
get.
Um, many compliments that weget is that we call people back
and and you know some of these,uh, other centers, um, they're
either, you know, through theirown house or they're it's a
private person, and so you knowyou don't have to call people
back.
But we want to be able to reachthose people too, educate them
on their situation, but also beable to help the animal that
they.
That's a need you know we get.
(30:54):
Every year is different, but onaverage we get five to 6,000
phone calls a year aboutwildlife situations.
So there's a, there's, I wantto trap a skunk in my yard, or
the baby squirrel that I've justfound in my yard, which is
happening a lot now.
I had a bird hit a window andall those things.
So you know, or what is thispoop we get?
We get that often too, and soyou know we're here to help the
(31:17):
people.
So calling us first is the bestway because we can, you know,
we can see what to do with thatsituation.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I want to wrap up with our tip time and to see you
know what kind of partingthoughts you might have for our
listeners.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
A couple of the main things that think that I think
about when you ask that questionis is keeping cats indoors?
I'm a crazy cat dad.
I have six cats.
I love all of them, but catsare, they belong indoors,
they're safer indoors and theythey destroy our native wildlife
populations.
I mean cats, kill, kill.
I mean up to 3.5 billionsongbirds a year in the United
(31:53):
States.
That's insane to think about.
And one thing that I didn'tmention is that we have lost 25%
of our songbird populations to70s.
They're gone, not coming back.
And a couple of the main thingsof that are cats windows, you
know insecticides, you knowclimate change, habitat
destruction all that combined isis a huge problem for these
(32:15):
birds and other animals.
But cats is easy one Close themup, don't let them out or make
a catio, because every day allsummer, every couple of times a
day minimum, people are callingabout there, my cat just brought
me this or my cat just broughtme that, and that's fully, fully
preventable.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Yeah, and cats are mean too.
They'll play with them.
You know they'll like whackthem around.
It is, and I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And it's not.
The cats aren't being mean,they're doing their thing, it's
a toy to them and that'sunfortunate, that that's so
common and it's so frustratingas a rehabilitator because you
know I might sound like it.
No, I mean it sounds like Ihate cats, but luckily I have
six of them and I love my cats.
So you can say that yeah, so,but it really sold.
Keeping cats indoors is numberone, you know, making sure that
(33:01):
your yard is is wildlifefriendly.
So planting native plants,reducing and eliminating non
native plants, you know, is a isa huge step because once you
you're planting I have a littleprairie in my backyard that I
have native plants growing andmilkweed and all the other
native flowers and it's it helpsthe environment because it
helps the pollinators and thenthat in turn helps the birds,
(33:22):
which helps all kinds of otherthings.
So, you know, keeping youreverything native and reducing
lighting obviously is one thing.
If you can reduce lighting, put, you know, feather friendly on
your windows that are large andyou have had collisions on
before and just respecting ourenvironment because it's, you
know, we're the ones that cancontrol it.
(33:43):
So try to help if you can.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What about low voltage lighting like landscape
lighting?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, that's fine.
Basically, any lighting that'slike pointing downward, is
better.
So the less lighting is better.
You know, with the night skyand the planetarium, folks are
for the same reason that we arejust a different, different way.
You know they want it dark sowe can enjoy the night sky and
see all the stars, and we wantit so the birds can continue
their flights safely, and it'sthe same thing.
(34:12):
So any light lighting you couldreduce is better.
And if you have to have safetylighting on or lighting on
decadently, you know if it'sfacing down is better.
So if it's facing up then youhave more issues.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Okay, and your favorite place to birdwatch.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
So many.
Huntington Reservation isawesome.
There's.
It's great for songbirds.
We actually had one thing Ididn't touch on with the with
the rehab birds as we work withPottermore Avian Research Center
in in Pittsburgh tagging someof these lights out Cleveland
birds with modus transmitters sowe can see where they're going
and how they're surviving.
And Luke DeGroote over there,is the head guy over there and
(34:49):
he was going to dig into thedata this fall to figure out
what you know, what we're goingto learn about it.
But we had two Kirtland'swarblers pass over our tower
here two years ago I think itwas, and it was October 12, I
think and so that's a criticallyendangered songbird in North
America and it passed throughour reservation here.
So we get a lot of cool stuffhere.
(35:10):
So songbirds, I think the numberone place I think is Huntington
.
It's an awesome place to bird.
Wendy Park is also awesomebecause a little small, little
migrant trap right next todowntown, so they're make it
safe there.
That's an awesome place.
I'm always at the Coast GuardStation out there the old Coast
Guard Station looking for gullsand ducks in the winter, and so
(35:30):
Wendy Park and Huntington are mytwo favorite places for
songbirds and just birds ingeneral, but any of the
Cleveland Metro Parks parks areawesome for wildlife.
Last, I just proved last yearor two years ago that North
American River Otters arebreeding in the park, which is
huge.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
North American what?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
North American River, otters.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Oh River Otters.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And there's a bobcat that's been seen twice in the
summer in one of the parks andthat's huge because they're
making a comeback.
So just the parks are awesomefor many things like I don't
play sports but people playsports at some of these parts of
the park, but for me it's thewildlife and so much parks.
Cleveland Metro Parks just hasan awesome place for all these
(36:12):
birds and just anyone on thelakefront.
So Edgewater all the way toEast 55th Cleveland Lakefront
Nature Preserve is a really,really good spot to bird to.
That's one of the best placesto see northern saw what owls in
the winter, because they winterand actually they spend the
winter here a lot of them and soit's a tiny little 100 gram owl
that they come through in theirmigratory.
So they come through mostly inthe then spend the winter.
(36:35):
We did have a young bird broughtin the summer this year and so
that meant that bird was nativeat bread.
Here it was.
It was.
It was born here and hatchedhere.
So actually tracked down theperson that brought the bird and
I found out he let me come tohis property and assess it and I
found the parents and othersiblings.
So that's a confirmed that theywere bred.
(36:57):
I don't know how often they'vebeen confirmed breeding here,
but it's super rare, so so, butyes, anyway, cleveland
Lakefront's great, so there'syou got your finger on the pulse
for sure.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, I'm going to listen to this episode and write
down every bird you justmentioned there's probably like
50 or more yeah yeah.
I love your enthusiasm.
Never a dull moment in yourlife.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I'm always on the go, for sure.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak
CLE.
You can find our full catalogof episodes on Spotify, apple
podcasts or wherever you getyour podcasts.
New episodes are available thefirst and third Tuesday of each
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Please follow EcoSpeak CLE onFacebook and Instagram and
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(37:40):
you'd like to become a sponsorof EcoSpeak CLE, you can email
us at hello at ecospeaksclecom.
Stay tuned for more importantand inspiring stories to come.
You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, where the
EcoCurious explore the uniqueand thriving environmental
community here in Northeast Ohio.
My name is Diane Bicke and myproducer is Greg Rotuno.
Together, we bring youinspiring stories from local
sustainability leaders andinvite you to connect, learn and
live with our community andplanet in mind.
(00:25):
Hello friends, thanks forjoining us.
We are going to start today'spodcast with a quick
announcement, a reminder for youto sign up for our next EcoMeat
CLE event, which is going to beon Tuesday, October 17th at
Great Lakes Brewing Company.
Door is open at five o'clockand we are featuring a local
(00:46):
food panel of speakers with somefarmers, and we'll be talking
about local food policy and ourlocal food system.
And, of course, we will havelocal food so please join us and
beer.
So please join us.
Tickets are $15 on Eventbrite.
Okay, so it is late Septemberand we are in the heart of the
(01:07):
fall bird migration season.
Millions of birds, especiallysongbirds, are migrating through
Ohio on their way south.
This migration usually takesplace at night.
Birds can fly hundreds of milesin one night and thousands of
miles to their destinations, butthey face a huge threat along
the way, and that threat is thebrightly lit buildings in
(01:28):
downtown Cleveland with theirreflective glass, which is very
disorienting to the birds andcauses them to smash into the
glass or circle the buildingsuntil they fall from exhaustion.
And it's not a small number ofbirds that are hurt or killed
flying into buildings.
Just ask any of the volunteersfrom Lights Out Cleveland who
have been roaming the downtownstreets in the early morning
(01:51):
hours during migration season torescue injured birds and
collect dead ones since 2017.
And we have one of thosevolunteers with us today,
Speaking with us about theperils faced by migratory birds
and the work being done to helpthem is Tim Chisinski, the
founder of Lights Out Clevelandand a wildlife rehabilitation
(02:11):
specialist with the Lake ErieNature and Science Center in Bay
Village, which is CuyahogaCounty's only wildlife
rehabilitation center.
Welcome, Tim.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Hello, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Thanks for joining us .
I read that you once said thatdowntown Cleveland is more
lethal to avian species in anyother city in Ohio.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And why?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So there's many reasons why, but one of the main
reasons is that Cleveland isright on the lake, right on the
shores of Lake Erie, and thebirds are.
It's a big barrier for birdswhen they're crossing over,
doing their migration, and soeither they they're tired from
flying over the lake and theyget right to downtown and it's a
(02:55):
large city and it's it can bevery brightly lit.
So just being on the lake frontis is one of the main problems.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
And they're attracted to the light.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, they're attracted to.
We don't really know why, butthis birds and insects are
attracted to light and it's justthe white lights specifically,
and they are just, they flytowards it, and so that can
cause issues when there's a lotof glass behind that light.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And so what's happening?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So typically these birds are migrating at night and
they're they're coming to thecity and if the city is lit up
they just are drawn to that,versus going, versus to continue
their migration.
So they get down into the cityand they're circling and
circling, just trying to figureout what to do, because normally
they probably didn't encountercities before, and so they're
(03:41):
just circling trying to figureout what to do because they
never, may never, have seenglass or buildings or anything
before.
Because a lot of these birdsare migrating from the boreal
forests of Canada for the firsttime, specifically in fall.
They hatch this year up upthere and they're heading down
and they're just they're,they're lost and they're
confused, and you know thenthey're, they're in trouble,
they're trapped in the cityscapeand and they're running into
(04:03):
the glass because thisreflective it is.
We often get people here calland right here comments that
birds are stupid because theyhit glass.
People run into glass too.
So if you ever see constructionsites, they have like tape over
the glass so people don't runinto it.
It's just a thing that theydidn't evolve with.
You know, they don't understandthe concept of glass.
They see glass as either acontinuous habitat, so they see
(04:27):
trees, trees and then more trees.
But we see trees, trees, glasstrees because of the reflection.
So they are just followingthose trees and they go from one
tree to another and they don'tunderstand that there's glass
there, so they hit it and thenthey're injured or dead
immediately.
It's unfortunate.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, I first heard of lights out Cleveland several
years ago from a friend, shirleyTomicello, who's active in your
organization.
She's with the Cleveland lawdepartment and also a bird lover
, and she told me about thisorganization where volunteers
are kind of combing the streetsof Cleveland in the early
morning hours, like between fiveand eight AM, and they're
(05:08):
you're picking up dead birds andinjured birds, and by the
dozens and by the hundreds.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Oh yeah, I mean on average for a full year.
Lights out.
Cleveland volunteers collectaround 3,000 songbirds down
there Get out.
Yeah, about two thirds arefound dead, unfortunately, but
it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It is a lot.
So you're collecting theinjured birds and bringing them
all here.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, so all the live birds and dead birds actually
are brought here to the centerso we can process them.
The live birds get medicationsand obviously we can go into
that in a little bit.
The dead ones go into thefreezer with the hopes that
they'll go to a museum orsomewhere where they can be used
as for science, for, you know,for the future, so they're not
thrown away or eaten by gullsdowntown.
(05:57):
They're actually can be usedand repurposed for to study them
.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Wow.
So what kind of birds aremigrating?
Right now it's late September.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So we're getting mostly warblers right now.
The early migrant warblers likeBay Brezza warblers, black Pole
warblers, tennessee,commonwealth, throat, nashville,
red Stards, black ThreadedBlues and the trickling of
sparrows are starting to comethrough.
So we're getting our firstLincoln sparrows now.
A few white threaded sparrowsare coming through.
(06:29):
We haven't had the influx yet.
That's usually end of Octoberfor those guys, but we're
getting mostly warblers rightnow and some.
Our first yellow-bellied sapsucker the other day, rosebesser
Grospeaks.
So there's birds we kind ofcall super colliders and those
are birds that are always foundin any collision program.
(06:50):
Just there's a lot of them andit's just something about those
birds are more prone tocollisions.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Wow, do you know, have an estimate, how many birds
you have at the Wildlife Centernow?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I don't have an exact amount.
We released a bunch today but Imean every day can be different
, but on average for fall weadmit anywhere from like five to
150 live birds a day, dependingon weather and other factors
involved, how many people wehave down there.
But fall is busy becausethere's a couple reasons.
One is that all the young birdsare coming down for their first
(07:24):
flight, so there's more birdsthan there would be in the
spring.
And then also the migrationpatterns are different in the
fall.
So Black Pole Warbler might goup through the South America,
through Mexico and up towardsthe breeding forest, the border
forest in Canada and Alaska, inthe spring, but in the fall
they're going to take aSoutheast migration to the coast
, coming through Ohio.
(07:44):
So we get very few Black PoleWarblers in the spring but a lot
of them in the fall.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Walk us through what happens with how many you know
lights out, cleveland, yourvolunteers what happens?
Do you meet up on 9th andCarnegie or something at five in
the morning?
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, so it really depends.
But typically we have a meetinglocation, we have leads for the
morning, so we have volunteersthat are seasons doing this, so
they're our lead for the morning, so they kind of organize the
collection for the morning.
So they'll text the team and say, hey, we're meeting here at
this time and they'll all gettogether, get all the supplies
that they need and then theyhead out and start monitoring
(08:23):
the certain routes downtownlooking for injured or stunned
or dead birds and we go,typically lights out, cleveland
starts March 15th through thebeginning of June and we start
August 15th and we go throughmid-November and so we go every
single day, unless there's likesevere weather that prevents us
(08:43):
from going down there.
But yeah, we're collecting everysingle day and we need more
volunteers.
So that's a good thing we'redoing this.
But the goal is to have atleast eight people a day 12
people a day really, ideallywhere you can do all the
different routes and have enoughpeople to collect the amount of
birds, because sometimes birdswill be found on one route and
(09:06):
they're not found on the otherroute and we don't really know
why that happens.
But one route could have a tonof birds and others are just
vacant of birds.
So the more people we have downthere, the more coverage the
better we have of collecting allthe birds that are affected.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I can't imagine it's easy to get enough volunteers to
help you One.
It's very heartbreaking work, Iimagine.
Yes, the hours are kind ofrough.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah.
Seven days a week, it is.
So in 2017, when we startedthis, I went down every day and
then came to work every day, soit's a volunteer thing.
Then I came to work every day,so I'm really tiring 12 more
days.
Yeah, basically, but yeah, soit's a lot of work, it is early
mornings, but you're savingbirds that need help, so if you
weren't down there doing it,they would be either they would
(09:52):
be dead from flying into anotherwindow, because even if they do
fly away, there's other glasseverywhere down there.
The cleanup crews sweep them uplive or dead, put them in a
trash, and then gulls get them.
So gulls are a very smart andintelligent bird.
We have in the lake that theylearned to monitor these
buildings themselves for birdsthat are collision victims.
(10:15):
So they'll actually fly downpast Rocket Mortgage, fieldhouse
or another larger building andjust scoop up all the birds that
may have hit that morning andeat them all up at one time Wow,
so yeah, Is there traininginvolved for your volunteers?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
There is how to pick up an injured bird so you don't
injure it more there is.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
So all the volunteer aspect of Lights Out Cleveland
is now run by ClevelandMetroparks, so they have an
awesome volunteer system thereand there is a training videos
you have to watch and there's alittle quiz at the end.
But basically, if you want tobecome a Lights Out Cleveland
volunteer, go to ClevelandMetroparks website and look
under Volunteer Opportunitiesand there should be a little job
(10:56):
in quotes post for Lights OutCleveland and you fill that out
and then you can get put on theschedule and you can pick the
days you want to go down, and soit's really easy.
It's a super easy process andit is.
The drawbacks of Lights OutCleveland are there are a lot of
dead birds and bats that wefind down there and it's a lot
of walking and early morning.
But it is rewarding that youcan not only save birds that are
(11:20):
alive, that you can rescue, butalso all the birds that are
picked up that are dead arestill going to be used for
scientific collection and notthrown away or eaten by gulls,
so you're still helping.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And you get your 20,000 steps in for the day.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, on average, most of the volunteers, at least
when I was actively doing it.
Often it's about 10 milesminimum a day you're doing down
there.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Wow, tell us about how Lights Out Cleveland was
started.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So there was a woman named Sue Roman and she worked
at one of the buildings indowntown Cleveland, the 200
public square, the HuntonBuilding.
She worked as a security guardand she would actually bring in
a ton of birds every spring andfall that she collected down
there while she was working.
She would pick up these birdsand sneak them into a box and
hide them in her locker and thenbring them to us at the end of
(12:06):
the day after her shift, and shewas really passionate about
this.
So I really deem her the onethat started Lights Out
Cleveland thought process, andso she'd bring the birds here
and then we rebuilt the liveones and released them, and then
the dead ones would go to theCleveland Museum of Natural
History, where Chief WildlifeOfficer Harvey Webster was
working then, and he says thisis a problem, we need to get
(12:28):
this going, we need to get this,we need to do something in
Cleveland, and so he tried toorganize a see, if I can say it,
were there other Lights Outorganizations in existence at
the time.
Lights Out Columbus, I think,was first, yeah, and so we kind
of wanted to piggyback onbasically, chicago's Lights Out,
cleveland Lights Out, lightsOut program, and so we wanted to
(12:51):
do what they were doing inChicago in Cleveland.
And so Harvey tried to get thisgoing.
He wanted to call it smart,light, safe flight and that's
hard to say and he was trying toget things going by
extrapolating data from othercities to show, hey, it's a
problem here.
But then they would getquestions from building owners,
well, how do you have data toshow that?
And they would go, oh no, notreally.
And back then we just rushedabout city.
(13:14):
We just got the lights on.
Why are we trying to turn themback off?
Kind of thing.
So it just didn't really work.
And so that was in the early2000s, 2006, 2004, or somewhere
around there, when Sue Roman wascollecting these birds.
And so then in 2016, at OhioWild Life Rehabilitation
Association conference, mattSchumar from Ohio Bird
Conservation Initiative did atalk about Lights Out and what
(13:37):
to do, and I ran up to him afterthe conference.
I'm like yo, we need to getthis going in Cleveland.
He's like whoa, who's thiscrazy guy Like?
I'm like really obviouslyenergetic and I talk really fast
.
And so he's like OK, we'llfigure something out.
And so then, because thatspring we had 18 American
woodcock brought in fromdowntown, just from the general
public, because here at thecenter we don't have resources
to pick up animals so the publicbrought in 18 woodcock alone in
(14:00):
that spring and I'm just likethis is stupid, we need to get
this, we need to do something.
This is preventable, let's dosomething.
So then I harassed Matt thatfall and then in that early
spring of 2017, like usuallyJanuary February I got together
with Harvey and Dr Annie Jones,former curator of ornithology at
the Klee Museum of NaturalHistory, and a couple of the
(14:21):
collaborators and said how arewe going to do this?
And I said let's do this.
So I got a bunch of bird, herfriends and Cleveland zookeepers
to help start a monitoringprogram to figure out where
these birds are and wherethey're hitting and how we can
help with the data that SueRoman gave us, where she would
say.
I said where are these birdshitting?
So she's like oh, I don't know.
She's going crazier than I am.
(14:41):
So I'm like hold on.
So let me write this down.
So we wrote it down on whereshe would find all these birds.
And then Andy Jones and Imapped it out kind of on where
we should start looking forthese birds and that's where it
started.
So everyone gives me credit forstarting, even though I
technically did, you know, withthe monitoring program.
But Harvey Webster is reallythe dream.
I'm like getting this going, soI always give him credit.
(15:03):
He was gives me credit, so it'sboth of us that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
The other aspect of lights out Cleveland is to get
the building owner owners toturn off their lights from
midnight to what dawn.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
How?
How's that going?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So that's not my part of the job.
My job is to take care of thebirds and we have collaborator
collaborators like Matt Schumarwith Oha bird conservation
initiative.
Harvey Webster is the retiredchief wildlife officer for
Cleveland Museum of NaturalHistory, and a couple other
people like you mentionedShirley Thomas oh, she's awesome
and so there's a bunch ofdifferent people that are in
(15:37):
collaboration to Talk to buildbuilding owners and managers on
what we're recommending, so theydo all the big work there.
I don't do that part of it, sowe leave it to the experts for
that.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
So what do you recommend then for building
owners, especially downtownbuildings, high-rises we're
talking mainly right really any.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Honestly, it's any building that has glass, okay,
that can be.
That's either reflective or alarge pane of glass,
specifically near Habitat.
So bushes, trees, grass, thingslike that, where where the
birds are feeding, so they'remore likely to hit on windows
adjacent to Habitat becausethat's where they're hanging out
.
So I see any any building thatwants to, even if they don't
(16:16):
have any, you know, windows ifthey want to reduce lighting.
Just you could reach out tolights out Cleveland through a
how bird conservation initiativewebsite.
It's a hot lights out org.
You could just go to thatwebsite and an email Matt
Schumar and he can get in touchwith you and, you know, give you
recommendations or whatever onwhat we can, what you can do to
help in your own building.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
So we encourage managers of buildings and, you
know, owners to reach out to usto see how they can help in the
springtime there's a blue jaythat always you know nests and
this one tree I have frontAlways smashes into my window
and I've tried everything tokind of reduce the Reflectivity
of the glass, like shutting theblinds and putting strings up,
(16:59):
and but is there another way toTo kind of make the glass not
reflective?
So that's a good question thatcould work in my house but also
like big commercial buildingssure?
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, so the, there's two.
There's another reason I forgotto mention why birds hit glass.
And it's there.
They're attacking thereflection.
So the jay you just mentionedis angry at the jay that's in
his territory.
So he's not actually hit in thewindow because he's dumb or
he's, so he doesn't understandthat it's, you know, doesn't
understand the concept glass.
He's actually seeing his ownreflection and trying to chase
that bird away from histerritory and they don't leave
(17:31):
because it's its reflection.
So he's, he's just all day.
This happens typically with withRobbins Cardinals, american
Goldfinches, scarlet Tangers,any brightly, brightly colored
birds.
This happens.
We get a lot of spring calls,especially starts and usually
March or April, like people calland they say I got this bird
doing the weirdest thing.
I'm like can I guess what it is?
And they're like, yeah, I'mlike is he attacking your window
(17:51):
?
She's like yeah, how did youknow?
And it's just, that's aseasonal thing and so they just
they're attacking theirreflection.
So basically to answer aquestion, breaking up the
reflection is the best way to doit.
It doesn't always work withthose kind of birds because
they're just, they still get,still gonna see their reflection
.
But what we recommend with yourown house or large buildings
downtown is using any birdcollision film that you can get.
(18:15):
There's two main companies thatsell it is Kaleid escape and
feather friendly.
They're both great companies.
We work very closely with Paulfrom feather friendly here.
We're actually gonna betreating our building here
eventually with with withfeather friendly, because it's
you know, we do have collisionshere.
Any basically any building orstructure has glass is gonna
have collisions.
(18:36):
Most of the collisions thathappen in North America are from
residential houses, so the thebuilding high rises downtown do
certainly pose a problem, butit's majority more jordily.
That's not even a real word.
Most of the collisions happenat residential houses.
So anything you can do at yourown house, you can go to feather
(18:57):
friendly org and researchresidential Window treatment.
So basically there's there'sdifferent ways you can do it and
different things, but there'sbasically fretted dots that go
on the outside of the windowthat break up the reflection.
So it's recommended that everytwo by two inches of the window
is covered.
Long-term study used to been toevery two by four inches, but
(19:18):
then we realized hummingbird wasstill getting through that.
So it's recommend now thatevery two by two inches are
covering the window and thatbreaks of a reflection and it's
proven to be really, reallysuccessful.
And it's it's, it's, it'shighly recommended to reach out
to either collat, escape orfeather friendly to treat your
windows at home.
And we often hear here peoplewill call and say I had a bird
(19:39):
hit my window.
It's and this is the first timeit's like, not the first time
you've noticed you've had toglass up, there's birds hitting
that window and so just becauseyou didn't notice doesn't mean
there's others happening.
So it's easy, you just, youjust.
It comes in little, eitherlittle strips or large pieces of
Plastic that you basically puton the window, and then you
remove the layer of the stickypart and just a little dacha
(20:03):
left on the window, and so it'sreally effective.
I.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Are there some buildings in downtown Cleveland
that are worse than others, whenit comes to just there?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
there certainly can be and you know we definitely
don't want to building shame anybuildings that are down there
because now we can't do it.
It's not how, but basically anybuilding has large amounts of
glass that's reflective and hashabitat, is is, you know, is
going to be problematic, so buteven just small little windows
can be.
So you know, generally we wemonitor Most of downtown of what
(20:38):
we can cover with the peoplethat we have and any really, we
find birds on a lot of places.
So basically, the larger theamount of glass and the more
habitat around is you'll findmore collisions there.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Okay, well, I did read that rocket mortgage field
house was Is now participatingin the program by turning off
their lights, so that's got tobe a huge it is.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
They're great people.
They've been working with MattSchumar and Harvey and the other
collaborators to figure outwhat, what to do.
They know that birds hit theirwindows and they want to help,
which is awesome.
So, you know, haven't you know?
Knowing that you, you havepeople like that, that that say
okay, we know it's a problem,what can we do to help?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
is awesome.
I ask you how many birds you'vecollected this year so far?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I don't remember offhand, I haven't looked at the
data, but it, you know, fall onaverage.
Typically you get about 800 toa thousand nine hundred birds or
so in the spring and about Twothousand twenty five hundred in
the fall.
So it really depends, but it'sstarting to pick up.
We had a 45 live bird day lastweek and that you know to other
(21:39):
rehabilitators like, oh my gosh,I can't believe you get that
many birds.
I'm like that's not a big deal.
45 is easy to deal with.
I mean, you know we're kind ofset up in our, in our rehab
center, where we have cagesready For the birds for the next
day.
So as long as we're not alreadyloaded which does happen we
have cages already pre-cleanedand ready.
So when the volunteers bringthe birds in for the morning,
all you have to do is fill outtheir paperwork, get their
(22:00):
medications and then get theircages, you know, with the food
and everything's already set up.
So it's a pretty quick process.
So we've been able to getpretty good system going.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Okay, can't wait to hear more about that process.
But first I want to hear moreabout how someone like yourself
Becomes a wildlife Recitationspecialist, or what was your
journey to this role along.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I'm old, I'm 45.
I'm gonna be 45 in October andI've I've been involved with
wildlife since I was little, andso I would find sick cardinals
or something when I was likeSeven and I would take care of
them illegally back in the 80swhere you know, you know rehab
centers like we do now.
So and then just just had that,I've always had animals, I've
always taken care of animals.
(22:44):
So I In the late mid 90s I meta rehabilitator that was
licensed to do raccoons and shehad friends that did raptors,
and so that I met the MadonnaRaptor Center folks.
There, you know they would sendme out to catch Raptors that
were injured.
I'm pretty quick and so I canchase things down and catch them
pretty quickly.
So I would, you know, catch upCooper's Hawk and take it out to
(23:06):
Laura and missy over there atMadonna Raptor Center, and and
then I just became friends withthem and then I just learned
about just I just got into thatinto the group of all the
rehabilitators and then Istarted volunteering.
I brought an injured HarryWoodpecker here that hit a
window, ironically In 2007, Ithink it was, and so that
started volunteering 2008, andthen I just never left.
(23:28):
So, yeah, it's, it's.
I didn't go to college.
I learned everything on my ownjust by studying wildlife and
being a nerd studying birds andall the different native
creatures in Ohio and Just kindof I just I bred cage birds and
in and grade school and highschool and so I just learned how
to just do all that stuff juston my own and so then I became a
volunteer here in 2008 and thenI was a seasonal back then.
(23:50):
It was a seasonal position in2010.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
You didn't leave until they hired you is right,
basically, yeah, where'd yougrow up with town?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Parmaites just a little.
I actually technically grew upin Maple Heights, but then we
moved to Parma in 1991, and soI'd been in local ever since
that first little sparrow thatyou brought home?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
How did you know how to take care of it?
What did you do for it?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I just offered it food and rest and yeah, I
remember specific one was acardinal, for sure, I remember
the male cardinal that probablyhad a window, who knows?
And yeah, just took care of soyou bring a bird here.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
It's been traumatized .
It hit a building Middle of thenight, wakes up here, do you?
They're in pain, what?
How do you treat just how doyou make them comfortable?
How do you take away their pain?
And how?
I mean how?
You can't put a splint on awing.
You can, you can, yeah so.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So the number one really rule with with wildlife
rehabilitation is, if you havean injured or sick or orphan
animal, keeping a warm, dark,quiet place until you can get to
treatment for from a licensedRehabilitator.
So the main thing we do downthere in downtown and I've
taught the volunteers how toreduce stress on the birds so we
capture them with withbutterfly nets, um I, and then
(25:02):
we place them in brown paperbags that are made with lights
out Cleveland information thatwe collect down there, um, about
the bird and then we transferthem to the car or someone's car
as soon as possible to let themrest, because obviously went
through a lot hitting the windowand then a big monster picks
you up and they think they'regoing to get eaten.
They don't know we're trying tohelp.
So you get them into a box orget them to the bag, get them
(25:24):
back to a car, let them restwhile you're continuing, you're
monitoring for the morning, andthen once they come here, we let
them rest again because it'syou know, obviously the drive
here is stressful.
So we bring them here, let themrest and then, once they're
rested here, we give them about15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes
depending, and then weadminister medications to the
birds and that helps reduceswelling of the brain and so,
(25:45):
basically, when a bird hits awindow, um, it doesn't die from
a broken neck, they die fromcranial swelling.
It's basically like brainbleeding.
So, um, in order to reduce thepain and swelling, you give them
anti-inflammatories to helpreduce that Uh, and that that
really really helps.
So that early you can get abird treated, the better chance
it has.
So that's number one thing isso when they get here, we let
(26:08):
them rest for a little bit, thenwe administer the medications
and everything's really quick.
So a lot of times news outletswill come and want to video and
see things and I'm just like getthe bird in the bag quick and
it's like under a few seconds totreat these birds.
And that's because we don'twant to stress them out.
You know they don't know we'retrying to help.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
So oftentimes when people bring an animal here to
the center, um, you know they'repetting it or talking to it and
they think that's helping.
But I, I I switched around onthem and I say it would be like
if you got injured in a T-Rexpicked you up and was trying to
talk to you and say you're goingto be okay, how would you feel
I'm going to eat and I'm dead?
So state of shock a state ofshock Correct, and so, um,
oftentimes, when people see abird in its eyes or closing,
(26:46):
they think that that's, that'sactually comfortability, but
that's actually high stress.
So birds are their bodiesstarting to shut down because of
stress.
So reducing stress is thenumber one thing.
So that's what we do is reducestress.
So the, the, the medicationshelp.
Another thing that helps is iswe have the setups um designed
for the bird to succeed.
So you know they don't want tobe here, obviously, in captivity
(27:06):
, Um, so we set the enclosuresup with to make them feel
comfortable.
It's covered, so there's not alight getting in there, so
they're not able to see out, sothey're not trying to escape.
And, um, we, some of thespecies like morning warblers,
Connecticut warblers, yellowthroats, wrens those guys like
to be in in thick stuff, they'reskulky, they kind of like to
hide, and so if you don't putvegetation in there, they're a
(27:27):
little bit more stressed outthat way.
So those species will get abranch with a bunch of leaves on
it, Um, and that they can hidethere.
And then we offer insects um orother other things that they
eat, um in the enclosure to helpthem feel comfortable.
And because of all, that wehave a really good success rate
with with the released bird, soit it works out well.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
That's cool.
And you do all this in thebasement of the nature center
here.
How many people do you haveworking with you?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So there's there's there's five staff members from
kind of that right um in the sixactually in in wildlife and, um
, there's me and uh two otherpart time, two other full time
people um in wildlife, and thenthere's there's uh four, uh part
time, and so then they some ofthose help in rehab and do
(28:13):
education programs and also helpwith our educational animals,
and then others help and justrehab, and that's I'm the only
one that does only rehab.
So, um, the wildlife rehabspecialist here, so I run rehab
along with my coworker, kyleKoprowski, so he helps down
there too, um, and we just we doit together.
And then we have a ton ofvolunteers and interns that help
.
So it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
What advice do you have, if, if people find an
injured animal on the road orwhatever, what should they do?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
The main thing we're always educating on is put if
you can safely put the animalinto enclosure, like a box or a
shoe box or something like that,with no food or water, in a
warm, dark, quiet place, don'tdo anything else.
No food, no water.
Um, because often people wantto help and they try to look up
on Google what to do.
And if you Google, if I flat myarms fast enough, can I fly?
(29:02):
It's probably yes, on theresomewhere so you can find
unbiasedly any information youwant on there that's going to
fit your narrative.
So you don't want to trustGoogle with how to care for
wildlife.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So basically, don't do it.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, call a licensed rehabilitator and then we can
instruct you what to do, causewe often have people that are
well-meaning, people that do thewrong thing, and we had a
person today that called aboutan animal they've had for three,
five weeks now, and the weightof the animal was incredibly low
for what it should be, and theymeant well, but that brought it
(29:34):
here or called first cause.
It's something that we don'ttake here, um, but always call
licensed rehabilitator cause.
They're going to have theinformation.
That's true, and and what to doand what number should people
call?
So our number here is440-871-2900.
That's the main line to the toLake Ernie Trian Science Center.
So that'll go right to thefront desk and they'll answer
(29:55):
the phone.
And if they don't answerthere's different prompts you
can put to go to wildlife andthat's extension 204.
So you just leave a message andwe can call you back between
nine and four, um every day ofthe week, um every week of the
year.
We're here every single day.
Um often people you know haveholidays that they can take off,
but the animals need to becared for.
So the wildlife staff is hereyear round, every weather
(30:18):
doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah, it's like the sewer district.
I went to the clean water festover the weekend.
They're like the water doesn'tstop flowing.
We got to be here all the time,yeah, year round, 24 seven.
So um, I appreciate you callingme back so fast.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, we do, and that's one of the compliments we
get.
Um, many compliments that weget is that we call people back
and and you know some of these,uh, other centers, um, they're
either, you know, through theirown house or they're it's a
private person, and so you knowyou don't have to call people
back.
But we want to be able to reachthose people too, educate them
on their situation, but also beable to help the animal that
they.
That's a need you know we get.
(30:54):
Every year is different, but onaverage we get five to 6,000
phone calls a year aboutwildlife situations.
So there's a, there's, I wantto trap a skunk in my yard, or
the baby squirrel that I've justfound in my yard, which is
happening a lot now.
I had a bird hit a window andall those things.
So you know, or what is thispoop we get?
We get that often too, and soyou know we're here to help the
(31:17):
people.
So calling us first is the bestway because we can, you know,
we can see what to do with thatsituation.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I want to wrap up with our tip time and to see you
know what kind of partingthoughts you might have for our
listeners.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
A couple of the main things that think that I think
about when you ask that questionis is keeping cats indoors?
I'm a crazy cat dad.
I have six cats.
I love all of them, but catsare, they belong indoors,
they're safer indoors and theythey destroy our native wildlife
populations.
I mean cats, kill, kill.
I mean up to 3.5 billionsongbirds a year in the United
(31:53):
States.
That's insane to think about.
And one thing that I didn'tmention is that we have lost 25%
of our songbird populations to70s.
They're gone, not coming back.
And a couple of the main thingsof that are cats windows, you
know insecticides, you knowclimate change, habitat
destruction all that combined isis a huge problem for these
(32:15):
birds and other animals.
But cats is easy one Close themup, don't let them out or make
a catio, because every day allsummer, every couple of times a
day minimum, people are callingabout there, my cat just brought
me this or my cat just broughtme that, and that's fully, fully
preventable.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Yeah, and cats are mean too.
They'll play with them.
You know they'll like whackthem around.
It is, and I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And it's not.
The cats aren't being mean,they're doing their thing, it's
a toy to them and that'sunfortunate, that that's so
common and it's so frustratingas a rehabilitator because you
know I might sound like it.
No, I mean it sounds like Ihate cats, but luckily I have
six of them and I love my cats.
So you can say that yeah, so,but it really sold.
Keeping cats indoors is numberone, you know, making sure that
(33:01):
your yard is is wildlifefriendly.
So planting native plants,reducing and eliminating non
native plants, you know, is a isa huge step because once you
you're planting I have a littleprairie in my backyard that I
have native plants growing andmilkweed and all the other
native flowers and it's it helpsthe environment because it
helps the pollinators and thenthat in turn helps the birds,
(33:22):
which helps all kinds of otherthings.
So, you know, keeping youreverything native and reducing
lighting obviously is one thing.
If you can reduce lighting, put, you know, feather friendly on
your windows that are large andyou have had collisions on
before and just respecting ourenvironment because it's, you
know, we're the ones that cancontrol it.
(33:43):
So try to help if you can.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What about low voltage lighting like landscape
lighting?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, that's fine.
Basically, any lighting that'slike pointing downward, is
better.
So the less lighting is better.
You know, with the night skyand the planetarium, folks are
for the same reason that we arejust a different, different way.
You know they want it dark sowe can enjoy the night sky and
see all the stars, and we wantit so the birds can continue
their flights safely, and it'sthe same thing.
(34:12):
So any light lighting you couldreduce is better.
And if you have to have safetylighting on or lighting on
decadently, you know if it'sfacing down is better.
So if it's facing up then youhave more issues.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Okay, and your favorite place to birdwatch.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
So many.
Huntington Reservation isawesome.
There's.
It's great for songbirds.
We actually had one thing Ididn't touch on with the with
the rehab birds as we work withPottermore Avian Research Center
in in Pittsburgh tagging someof these lights out Cleveland
birds with modus transmitters sowe can see where they're going
and how they're surviving.
And Luke DeGroote over there,is the head guy over there and
(34:49):
he was going to dig into thedata this fall to figure out
what you know, what we're goingto learn about it.
But we had two Kirtland'swarblers pass over our tower
here two years ago I think itwas, and it was October 12, I
think and so that's a criticallyendangered songbird in North
America and it passed throughour reservation here.
So we get a lot of cool stuffhere.
(35:10):
So songbirds, I think the numberone place I think is Huntington
.
It's an awesome place to bird.
Wendy Park is also awesomebecause a little small, little
migrant trap right next todowntown, so they're make it
safe there.
That's an awesome place.
I'm always at the Coast GuardStation out there the old Coast
Guard Station looking for gullsand ducks in the winter, and so
(35:30):
Wendy Park and Huntington are mytwo favorite places for
songbirds and just birds ingeneral, but any of the
Cleveland Metro Parks parks areawesome for wildlife.
Last, I just proved last yearor two years ago that North
American River Otters arebreeding in the park, which is
huge.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
North American what?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
North American River, otters.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Oh River Otters.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And there's a bobcat that's been seen twice in the
summer in one of the parks andthat's huge because they're
making a comeback.
So just the parks are awesomefor many things like I don't
play sports but people playsports at some of these parts of
the park, but for me it's thewildlife and so much parks.
Cleveland Metro Parks just hasan awesome place for all these
(36:12):
birds and just anyone on thelakefront.
So Edgewater all the way toEast 55th Cleveland Lakefront
Nature Preserve is a really,really good spot to bird to.
That's one of the best placesto see northern saw what owls in
the winter, because they winterand actually they spend the
winter here a lot of them and soit's a tiny little 100 gram owl
that they come through in theirmigratory.
So they come through mostly inthe then spend the winter.
(36:35):
We did have a young bird broughtin the summer this year and so
that meant that bird was nativeat bread.
Here it was.
It was.
It was born here and hatchedhere.
So actually tracked down theperson that brought the bird and
I found out he let me come tohis property and assess it and I
found the parents and othersiblings.
So that's a confirmed that theywere bred.
(36:57):
I don't know how often they'vebeen confirmed breeding here,
but it's super rare, so so, butyes, anyway, cleveland
Lakefront's great, so there'syou got your finger on the pulse
for sure.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, I'm going to listen to this episode and write
down every bird you justmentioned there's probably like
50 or more yeah yeah.
I love your enthusiasm.
Never a dull moment in yourlife.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I'm always on the go, for sure.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak
CLE.
You can find our full catalogof episodes on Spotify, apple
podcasts or wherever you getyour podcasts.
New episodes are available thefirst and third Tuesday of each
month.
Please follow EcoSpeak CLE onFacebook and Instagram and
become part of the conversation.
If you would like to send usfeedback and suggestions, or if
(37:40):
you'd like to become a sponsorof EcoSpeak CLE, you can email
us at hello at ecospeaksclecom.
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