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Outdoor lighting expands your living space, enhances the beauty of your backyard, and improves safety. But if you also want to protect your backyard ecosystem, much less.
The goal, among other things, is to reduce the amount of light pollution that stars use as migratory birds, experts say. By following a few guidelines, you can avoid the negative effects of birds, insects, and other creatures and create the amazing outdoors you want.
Christopher Buchino, a landscape architect in Texas, Massachusetts, said: Buchino works on residential and commercial projects. Landscaping and lighting design.
There are many reasons to light up your yard. For example, you can create a secure path or login path; Show a specific garden, architecture or tree. Or do an outdoor living room that invites you to summer or autumn evenings.
“Small” means a few flashlights and many lights focused on specific styles, streets or meeting places. One goal is to avoid “lighting up” – which extends beyond the horizontal plane and explodes from a tree or shoots rather than at night. For example, one step down, Buchino says.
In North America, 70 percent of birds migrate, and 80 percent of them migrate at night, reports the National Oduboon Association. High-intensity light also influences the circus of birds, with John Rowden, executive director of the community’s bird-friendly community, focusing on issues such as outdoor lighting and indigenous living.
Influential low cost options
O’Donoghue is collaborating with the International Dark Sky Society to educate people about outdoor light pollution and to promote healthy light for humans, the environment and wildlife. IDA certifies dark-sky lighting equipment and lists manufacturers on its website. It also has outdoor lighting instructions, tips for light bulbs and acceptable lighting fixtures.
Outdoor lighting affects not only birds but also insects that are an integral part of the food chain, said David Mizevsky, a naturalist at the National Wildlife Federation. That includes flames of fire, which are constantly flying over white light.
“There are moths out there, and all they have to do is look for plants that will grow the night flowers they eat. . “
That means small moth caterpillars – an important source of food for baby birds. So, he says, in some coastal areas, the light from the outside is confusing the sea urchins that instinctively find the ocean because of the light sky over the water.
“Darkness is normal and natural, and what we have destroyed is something special,” Mizejewski said. And so each of us has the opportunity to make some simple behavioral changes.
The cost of outdoor lighting for a new LED bulb can range from thousands of dollars to $ 15,000 in design and installation costs. You can work with a landscape architect and / or a lighting design and installation company, or do it yourself.
But if you install a few self-made indoor lights or spend thousands on the new landscape, here are five ways to make your yard more welcoming to birds and beneficial insects.
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