Birdly Requiem - Oriole Deaths at Qwest Center Omaha

Dying Baltimore Oriole. May 18, 2009, Omaha riverfront.

There were two dead Baltimore Orioles at the Qwest Center Omaha this morning. A female was at the north side of the overhead crosswalk on the west side. A bit of ways south, a vividly colored male was outside the box office entry doors.

One was dead. One was disabled, then died as it tried to continue its migration but flew the wrong way and whacked into the glass, then fell to the concrete below, stunned beyond a way to survive.

The death was dramatically witnessed, though an effort was made to save the bird by taking it to a safer place than the building sidewalk where several people gawked at the outside disturbance to their breakfast.

It was agony for the bird ... and it was a sorrowfully slow death!

What would a pair of Baltimore Orioles have contributed to the species if their death had not been caused by indifference. There was no reason they should have died on the way to a home for the season to nurture and raise young.

Fatally disabled Baltimore Oriole. The bird was slowly dying at the moment when this picture was taken.

View of the death of a Baltimore Oriole. Note how the end of the bird's beak was disfigured when it struck the building glass.

The impacts could have been avoided if the Qwest officials had taken some of their $5 million profit, last year as reported in the local newspaper, and implemented effective efforts, a program that would result in no further bird strikes. Yet MECA officials blithely ignore impacts that happen nearly every day during bird migration in the Missouri River valley.

Based on documented strikes for the past two years, this city of Omaha-owned building is the deadliest in the city. There were five carcasses there on the morning of May 18, 2009. And there will be more, again and again.

Dead female Baltimore Oriole at the Qwest Center Omaha. May 18, 2009 in the morning.

There were five other bird carcasses at the west side of the Qwest Center on Monday morning.

---

Dead Baltimore Oriole at the Qwest Center Omaha. Tuesday morning, May 19, 2009.

---

Dead Baltimore Oriole at the Qwest Center Omaha. Friday morning, May 22, 2009.