If only birds were ‘puppies’: Lights Out Baltimore tracks 3,000 window collisions since 2018
In my work uncovering the toll of window collisions on Baltimore’s bird population, I delved into data collected by Lights Out Baltimore, a volunteer-driven organization tracking over 3,000 incidents since 2018.
My role involved analyzing trends made available from iNaturalist, interviewing stakeholders, and connecting findings to broader environmental and urban design challenges.
Re-published in:
- Baltimore Sun (front page for Sunday news)
- Baltimore Brew
- Maryland Matters
- Capital Gazette
- Maryland Reporter
- Baltimore Fishbowl
- Maryland Daily Record
- Trustworthy Media
- News From The States
- Dundalk Eagle
- Prince George's Post
Referenced in Merriam Webster
The online dictionary Merriam-Webster also included sentences from the story to their "Recent Examples on the Web" section for the words migrating and molting.
Behind the Scenes
I was scrolling through Instagram when a post from City Wildlife, a D.C.-based nonprofit, popped up in my feed. Millions of birds would fly over the city that night. The organization urged residents to participate in the Lights Out Program. Intrigued, I jotted down “bird fall migration” and “Lights Out” in my notebook of popcorn thoughts.
As part of the University of Maryland’s data and graphics bureau, my master’s program required stories that incorporated data analysis and visualizations. While the newsroom buzzed with election coverage, I dived into the world of birds, attending events and analyzing data.
I quickly realized that there is an overwhelming amount of data available about birds. Go figure. What could I possibly contribute that was meaningful? That hadn’t already been done? I was knee-deep in research and analysis. There was no turning back.
In October, I found myself driving to Baltimore at an ungodly hour. Again. I had spent the previous semester shadowing a private security guard as part of an investigative series. Now, I was meeting up with Lights Out Baltimore volunteers to understand a very different crime scene: the casualties of window collisions. Equipped with my notepad and camera, I stumbled after the volunteers as they sprinted between buildings, looking for dead and injured birds and uploading their findings to the app iNaturalist.
This experience helped ground my data analysis and revealed story gaps to close. The resulting feature intertwined narrative writing, data analysis, photojournalism, and visualizations to spotlight bird collisions during migration. To my surprise, the story landed on the front page of The Baltimore Sun and was picked up by nearly a dozen other outlets.
My research also inspired a feature on iNaturalist user Jon Merryman and other stories simmering in the background. I look forward to building on this momentum and exploring new ways to engage people with data-driven narratives.
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