Long before there were major shopping malls or grand department stores and even well before modern transportation, retail entrepreneurs busied themselves learning the art of the sale. It was not as easy then as it ...
History is replete with examples of those who put their predictions “on the record” only to have circumstances prove that they weren’t quite as prophetic as they would have had us believe. Famously, British Prime ...
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Consider the question of fire in the early days of Atlanta. How would anybody who wasn’t immediately affected by the fire know that there actually was a fire? I’m not talking about the “big” fire ...
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As sure as there is breakfast, lunch and dinner, there is snacking. Satisfying those between-meal cravings is a need we all have. While some people exercise discipline where consumption of snacks are concerned, most of ...
Atlanta’s major league baseball team, the Braves, began their Atlanta baseball history in 1966, but baseball’s history in Georgia predates the Atlanta Braves by nearly 100 years. Before the Braves, there were the Atlanta Crackers, ...
It is obvious that for pretty much everything there had to be a beginning, a first, something that got the ball rolling Sometimes if you’re the first you get to control the category. The name ...
When asked to name something that is quintessentially American, right after apple pie people usually will say…baseball. It is a long-held belief that baseball is, in fact, America’s national pastime. And while there are many ...
This week’s story comes to us from Saporta Report reader and all-around Atlanta history buff Greg Hodges who wrote to ask if we knew the story of Richard Petty’s 1959 victory at Atlanta’s Lakewood Speedway. ...
A graduate of the school now known as Spelman College, she was a teacher in Atlanta and the mother of a young son. Searching for a way for parents in Atlanta – and elsewhere – ...
When the 1895 Cotton States Exposition opened in Atlanta over 120 years ago, it represented the culmination of years of planning and fund raising on the part of the exposition’s organizers. It was a big-time ...
In 1895, Atlanta put its best foot forward for all to see with the Cotton States and International Exposition. It was a coming out party of sorts for Atlanta and designed to show the world ...
In November of 1864, having occupied Atlanta for a little over two months, William Sherman left the city to continue his march to the sea. About three miles out, he paused briefly and gazed back ...
It seemed like a good idea but, after the outsider gave his speech, it became a great idea.
Roger Babson is the founder of the Gravity Research Foundation, an organization with the stated purpose of studying, understanding and, ultimately, harnessing the force of gravity. it was the childhood drowning of his older sister ...
In her more than two-decades-long opera career, Atlanta-born Mattiwilda Dobbs performed to acclaim on stages around the world. Along the way, she made history time and again, although, never on stage in Atlanta. It’s the ...
Five dollars does not go very far these days in Atlanta – or most other places, for that matter. But, there was a time not so very long ago when five dollars could buy a ...
The Woodruff Arts Center complex is home to some of the City’s premiere arts organizations. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Alliance Theatre, and High Museum of Art all reside within its walls. The artistic theme continues ...
Featured Thought Leader
Making Atlanta Safer for Migrating Birds
People, Places & Parks Thought Leadership
By Jared Teutsch, Executive Director Bird migration is one of the most amazing feats in the natural world. Each fall and spring, billions of birds take to the skies, avoiding predators, and dodging turbulent weather as they travel between breeding grounds in the north and wintering grounds in the Caribbean or Central and South America. Some of these migration routes are epic, like the Red Knot that travels more than 9,300 miles one-way each fall and spring, pausing along Georgia’s coast to refuel. Or, the tiny Ruby-throated Hummingbird, weighing about the same as a penny, that spends summers in Georgia and then, in a stunning migratory feat, crosses the Gulf of Mexico, a 500-mile trip, in a single 18- to 22-hour flight! Many of these birds pass through Atlanta where they face a new and dangerous threat—glass-covered, brightly-lit buildings. Current research estimates that between 365 million and 1 billion birds perish each year after colliding with buildings in the U.S. Atlanta is a particularly challenging place for migrating birds, ranking as the fourth most dangerous city during fall migration and ninth in spring for light exposure to migratory birds, according to a 2019 study by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. With an estimated 250 million birds passing over Georgia during spring and 675 million birds migrating over in the fall, it is vital to learn about migration over our state and make our cities safer. Most migrating birds pass through Georgia during the nighttime hours, when skies are calmer, predators are less active, and temperatures are cooler. Large, brightly lit cities wreak havoc on migratory birds as the ever-present glow of artificial light turns the normally safe nighttime sky into a perilous pathway. Bright lights confuse and disorient birds causing them to collide with structures or become trapped in beams of light where they circle until they are exhausted. Once on the ground, brightly lit building lobbies, reflective glass showing trees and shrubs, transparent facades, or even indoor plants near windows can lead to more collisions. Since 2015, Georgia Audubon has been studying this problem through Project Safe Flight Georgia to gain a better understanding of what buildings are most problematic and which species are most affected. During spring and fall migration, volunteers patrol routes in downtown Atlanta, Buckhead, Dunwoody, as well as at Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State University, and Georgia State University. Through newly developed partnerships with these universities and the Lily Branch Audubon student chapter at the University of Georgia, in Athens, we have opened the door to new research opportunities, student engagement, and the possibility of making the campuses safer for birds. A sister program to Project Safe Flight, the Lights Out Georgia initiative is a voluntary effort designed to make Georgia safer for our resident and migratory birds. Modeled after similar successful programs in New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Toronto, Lights Out Georgia participants pledge to take bird-friendly steps during spring and fall migration between the hours of 12:00 midnight and sunrise to create safe passage for migrating birds. You can learn more about Light Out Georgia at www.georgiaaudubon.org/lights-out-georgia. Finally, thanks to a collaborative effort between Georgia Audubon and Dr. Kyle Horton, at Colorado State University, and a generous grant from the Disney Conservation Fund, Georgia Audubon recently launched a new tool allowing us to predict nights of high bird migration and issue Lights Out Alerts. While it might not be possible to dim the lights every single night during migration, reducing or eliminating nighttime lights on the ten or so peak migratory nights each season may be the most palatable approach. Beyond monitoring for building collision victims, we are taking steps to reduce these collisions through education, advocacy, and physically improving problematic buildings. From applying bird-safe film to select buildings with a collision problem to exploring the best avenues for implementing bird friendly glass in new construction projects, Georgia Audubon is working to make Atlanta a city that works not only for its residents, but also for the avian life that shares our space. This is sponsored content.
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