Nearly 1,000 migrating songbirds perish after crashing into windows at Chicago exhibition hall

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Nearly 1,000 songbirds perished during the night after crashing into the McCormick Place Lakeside Center 's windows, the result, according to avian experts, of a deadly confluence of prime migration conditions, rain and the low-slung exhibition hall's lights and window-lined walls. “It was just like a carpet of dead birds at the windows there,” said Willard, a retired bird division collections manager at the Chicago Field Museum, where his duties included administering, preserving and cataloging the museum's collection of 500,000 bird specimens as well as searching for bird strikes as part of migration research. This was a very catastrophic single event, but when you add it all up, it's always like that.” Conditions were ripe for a massive wave of songbird southern migration over Chicago on Wednesday evening, said Stan Temple, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife ecology professor and avian expert. “You had this huge pack of birds take off.” The birds swept south over Chicago, following the Lake Michigan shoreline - and right into a maze of illuminated structures, Temple said.