At 9/11 Tribute in Light, A Rare Opportunity for Bird Researchers

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For the past 16 years, the September 11th Tribute in Light has commemorated the anniversary of 9/11 with twin beams of light emulating the shape of the Twin Towers. This Monday, Takeaway Producer Oliver Lazarus went down to the site, where a handful of bird watchers and researchers stayed up all night to study the hundreds of thousands of birds that are drawn to the installation. 

There, Andrew Farnsworth and his team with the Cornell Ornithology Lab quantified how many birds were on site, what species, where they were coming from, and how their behavior changed. It's all an attempt to understand how birds are adapting to an environment that is increasingly dominated by humans.  

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(Oliver Lazarus)