August 3, 2021
August 2021 – The risk of airplanes colliding with birds jumps by as much as 400% during periods of migration, according to new research from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and partners, who have been looking for patterns in bird-strike data from three New York City-area airports.
“Out of all the bird strikes recorded at Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia airports during a six-year period, the highest number occurred during migration, especially during the fall, perhaps due to many inexperienced young birds born earlier in the year,” said Cecilia Nilsson, who led the study as a Rose Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cornell Lab, and is now at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
