Urban Wildlife Code in Jamaica

Urban Wildlife Code in Jamaica
According to a recent news report, Jamaica has adopted an Urban Wildlife Code as part of its development process. I'll post on this again when more info is available.

Wildlife and Urban Growth Management in Washington State

Joseph W. Tovar, director of special projects at the Northwest Center for Livable Communities at the University of Washington has an op ed piece in the Seattle Times discussing the history of Washington's growth management act. This legislation gives teeth to regions and communities trying to control growth in ways that can sustain wildlife and higher qualities of life. This op ed emphasizes the importance of planning for appropriate density, designing for density, and funding the public realm.

West Nile Hits Birds in Southern California

A recent Los Angeles Times story details the devestation West Nile is causing to bird populations in Southern California. California Condors have been immunized, but smaller native birds are at risk.

Parakeets Make The Times

Urban Monk Parakeets were featured in yesterday's New York Times. The article discusses the challenges of urban bird congregations such as parakeet colonies on electric structures and Canada geese in parks.

Birds and Sprawl in Southern Oregon

According to a recent report in The Oregonian, residents of the small town of Brookings are concerned about a new urban development that may threaten their way of life and rare Marbled Murrelets. The story illustrates the lengths development companies go to in preparing their site plans, including millions of dollars in studies and site improvements before building a master-planned community. Local residents often feel overwhealmed when facing development companies with millions of dollars to spend.

Adaptive Conservation Strategies

The Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO) has published DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING AN ADAPTIVE CONSERVATION STRATEGY: A guide for improving adaptive management and sharing the learning among conservation practitioners. The guide features five case studies, as well as information on achieving conservation results, monitoring, partnership building, communication, fundraising, and how to create a plan. The suggestions in this guide could be implemented at various landscape levels, including neighborhoods, municipalities, counties, and Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

Urban Planning for Wildlife in Minnesota

A model urban planning effort involving wildlife is Metro Greenprint: Planning for Nature in the Face of Urban Growth. Published in 1997, this citizen's report offered suggestions on how to plan for greenspace and wildlife in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. In 1998, this effort led to the establishment of a Metro Greenways program run by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Resources developed for this program include an innovative Land Cover Classification System that includes urban development, vegetation types and species, and soils. The program also provides resources on maintaining roadsides for wildlife and Metro wildlife corridors.

Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSHCP)
According to an August 13 story in The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, California):
"The nation’s fastest-growing large county has won approval to protect dozens of threatened and endangered species by locking out developers from a half-million acres of land.

Anti-sprawl groups, environmentalists and builders worked together on the conservation proposal, part of Riverside County’s nationally recognized effort to integrate planning for development of roads and homes with protections for delicate wildlife and plant habitat."

The Western Riverside plan is the latest MSHCP and Riverside County is sited as a model for urban conservation planning for wildlife. The plan requires the purchase of 153,000 acres from willing sellers in the next 25 years at an estimated cost of more than $812 million.

The cost will probably go up, and other plans (including the much celebrated Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan in Austin, Texas--more here) have been difficult to complete as public land purchases have tended to fuel higher land prices as unpurchased land becomes scarce.

Defenders of Wildlife has published an important evaluation of the problems in using the Endangered Species Act for conservation planning--see Frayed Safety Nets: Conservation Planning Under the Endangered Species Act by Laura C. Hood.

Recent News Stories

There have been some interesting recent urban bird conservation stories in newspapers around the country. Joan Lowy of the Scripps Howard News Service has a story out on green lawns and the move to ban or reduce pesticide use on lawns--at least partially spurred on by concerns about birds being killed in residential areas. The Portland Tribune has a story about Portland's famous urban Vaux's Swifts. The Canadian mining firm Phelps Dodge has been fined $15,000 for bird deaths at one of their Arizona operations. There's also a story about the damaging implications of the Bush administration's Healthy Forest Initiative.

Portland Oregon's metropolitan planning for wildlife continues to draw debate, as evidenced in a recent Oregonian opinion piece by Jim Irvine, chairman and chief executive officer of the Conifer Group and past president of the National Association of Home Builders.

While it is easy to feel like urban bird and wildlife issues are back burner to other social problems, there are efforts around the country to address the needs of urban birds and wildlife. While I try to keep up with events and stories such as these in local newspapers, feel free to send me any stories I may have missed.

Conservation and Culture

Luis A. Vivanco, assistant professor of anthropology and director of the Latin American Studies Program at the University of Vermont, published an interesting chapter in Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common Ground (Island Press, 2003).

In "Conservation and Culture, Genuine and Spurious," Vivanco argues that while most of us would now agree that successful conservation depends on attention to social relations and cultural context, we often fail to realize that culture is not a mere tool to change anti-environmental behaviors. According to Vivanco, conservationists often portray others--be they natives of third world countries, rural residents, or modern urban dwellers--as having a culture which is "spurious" in the sense that it is unauthentic and disconnected to nature. Conservationists then try to change this culture or, viewing these others as obstacles, try to remove them from their conservation area.

However, locals are people to be negotiated with, not obstacles to be removed from the landscape.

Vivanco claims that in order for conservation to work, "we need a conservationist culture based on dialogue--not domination--that is not about simply facilitating an exchange of wisdom in order to convert people to some predetermined expectations of what conservation "should be." This dialogue should also involve a process of mutual enrichment in which the means and ends of conservation themselves are open to new contingencies and intercultural negotiations." (72)

These arguments apply not only conservationists working in Latin America (Vivanco examines projects in Monte Verde, Costa Rica and Oaxaca, Mexico), but for those of us trying to protect birds in urban areas of North America. We all have to realize that there are multiple issues and concerns that need to be addressed, and that we can't impose our ideas upon local neighborhoods or residential communities. As others have argued, Vivanco states that we need to "join claims for nature to ongoing struggles over the social and political realities of rural and urban communities" (60) and "conservation must be defined in terms that strengthen community structures and relationships" (70).

To conduct urban bird conservation, we need to tie the needs of birds to the needs of urban residents of all socioeconomic, educational, racial, and other backgrounds. We need to work with other people and organizations to pursue shared interests, and explore the connections between poverty, joblessness, homelessness, environmental justice, crime, education, and other urban social issues.

In addition, since our work seeks to change urban culure, we need to ask a series of questions posed by Vivanco:

• What new social orders does conservation seek to validate and implement?
• What is the vision of acceptable cultural relationships, institutions, and attitudes?
• Who defines these new realities, and for whom do they apply?
• What are the hierarchies of relevant knowledge in specific conservation initiatives?

In a democratic society, bird conservation has to be addressed through community-building. Efforts to impose state or federal regulations will fail without community support. Even if immediate policy goals are met, the backlash from imposing new institutions and relationships will make future work harder and undermine the ability of agencies enforce their regulations on the community. The Endangered Species Act, while a powerful tool to protect rare species, is often perceived as a political weapon and resented by local communities.

As long as bird conservation seeks to create a new social order, this new order should be negotiated and harmonized with the interests of the community. Negotiation, community-building, listening to the concerns of others, lots of meetings with food...all make for better conservation work than angry public meetings where local residents feel defensive about being imposed upon by additional regulations.

Vivanco gives us cause to pause in our conservation work, and ask ourselves the hard questions about how we see those other individuals and groups we are working with, and what kind of social vision we are seeking to impose or (more hopefully) create. The ends do not justify the means. In this case we need to see that the means, community-building, is also the end--healthy urban communities that sustain people and birds.

More Condor Trouble for El Tejon Ranch

According to a story in today's The Bakersfield Californian (sign in required):
"Friction between Tejon Ranch Co. and environmentalists opposed to its development plans escalated this week with allegations by an environmental group that the ranch is responsible for the death of a condor killed on its property last year by a hunter.
Attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity announced this week that the environmental watchdog group based in Tucson, Ariz., has formally asked the state Attorney General and state Environmental Protection Agency to investigate the incident. Last year, a Tehachapi man shot a condor from a tree during a pig hunting party hosted by Tejon Ranch.
The center's charges follow a recent application by Tejon Ranch to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for an incidental take permit. The permit, in conjunction with a required condor Habitat Conservation Plan, would free the ranch from liability for the incidental or accidental death of a condor during construction of its proposed 23,000-home Centennial residential project. The permit would also protect the ranch for 50 years after the development is built."

The dead condor was AC-8, the last wild female condor to be captured for captive breeding in the 1980s. In 2000, she had been re-released after 14 years in captivity. Read more of her life history here.

On a personal note, she may have been one of the three condors I saw as a kid, 19 years ago this week (6 August 1985). For sure I saw AC-9, the young male condor Igor (my friend Jim Johnson got a photo of him as he soared overhead) that mated with AC-8 in 1986.

The California Condor is one of the greatest challenges for urbanization in southern California. How can we develop cities that aren't a threat to such large, wide-ranging birds?

Tejon Ranch Development and Condors

A Los Angeles Times story (sign in required/archive story for purchase) recounts attempts to develop part of the 270,000 Tejon Ranch, which is critical habitat for the California Condor. According to the story, "Tejon Ranch has pledged to set aside a preserve for the endangered bird on the ranch's wildest backcountry — about 100 square miles of rugged ridgelines up to 6,800 feet high — but only if the federal government will shield the company from liability if condors are accidentally harmed or killed by ranch activities or development."

For more info on this topic, check out topix.net as well as the official announcement in the Federal Register.

Flaming Wildfire Bird

Flaming Wildfire Bird
According to news reports (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/07/19/wildfires/), the recent 5,700 acre Foothill wildfire in Los Angeles County, California was caused when a Red-tailed Hawk flew into a power line and caught fire, falling to the ground and igniting dry vegetation. Powerlines remain a hazard to many birds, and in this case, created a human risk. Earlier this spring, a bird grounded a powerline causing an outage at the Los Angeles International Airport control tower, delaying about 100 flights (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4723808/).

West Nile Mosquitoes Most Likely To Come From Backyards

West Nile Mosquitoes Most Likely To Come From Backyards
A recent news report from Iowa claims that the mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus are more common in polluted water--the kind most commonly found in backyard bird baths, dog dishes, and old discarded tires. West Nile is killing large but unknown numbers of birds, and backyard birds living in proximity to these mosquitoes may be at greatest risk.

More info on urban mosquitoes and West Nile can be found here, here, and here.

Effects of West Nile on bird populations remain unknown, though there are reports of widespread bird deaths in the midwest, and numbers of crows in the midwest appear to be down. Now there is concern about industrialization and mining creating habitat for West Nile mosquitoes in rural areas where they are impacting vulnerable Sage Grouse populations in the Mountain West (more here, here, and here).

BirdPAC

Ever wish you could influence electoral politics for the benefit of birds and wildlife? Tired of hearing how special interests are buying candidates, but you don't have enough money to buy your own? Join with others to support candidates that will do the right thing for birds, wildlife, and the environment by contributing to a new environmental Political Action Committee--BirdPAC.

BirdPAC is the political muscle behind more than 52 million Americans who go bird watching, bird hunting, study birds, and are passionate about protecting bird habitats. BirdPAC represents bird lovers and raises the awareness of bird conservation issues with decision makers who want bird enthusiasts as their friends.

In addition to being the fastest growing outdoor pastime, enjoying birds is big business responsible for generating billions of dollars in retail sales and taxes while providing hundreds of thousands of jobs. Yet birds and bird enthusiasts do not receive the recognition or representation they deserve. Contribute to BirdPAC today and help give birds a voice by electing lawmakers who will advocate for birds, their habitats, bird watchers, bird hunters and better bird science tomorrow. Contribute today!

Wind Farms Bad For Birds?

The potential use of wind farms as a "green" source of energy remains a controversial topic. While some observers declare that modern windmills are more bird-friendly (also here) than the disastrous Altamont turbines in California that have killed thousands of raptors over the past 20 years, others claim that power companies are hiding the true effects of wind farms on birds (See Mark Duchamp's critique here, with many links--including the claim that wind farm electric generation does not reduce greenhouse emissions). An additional critique of windfarms is provided by Country Guardian.

While modern societies need to find alternative energy sources, care must be taken to ensure that new technologies do not destroy wildlife populations.

Birds and Global Warming

Climate change attributable to human urban industrial activity will potentially alter bird distrubutions and abundance in significant ways. Check out the 2000 EPA report and additional articles here, here, here, and here.

Perhaps the best online source of information on global warming and birds is at the American Bird Conservancy's Website. ABC's Jeff Price has been studying this for years, and is the director of this program (a great guy, I've birded with him on the Kennedy Ranch in South Texas and led some bird tours with him for the Harlingen Birding Festival back in 1996).

Good sources of info on global warming in general can be found by following the links at Disinfopedia. Since 82% of greenhouse gas emissions come from burning fossil fuels for electricity and driving around urban areas, our urban lifestyles are having a huge impact on global wildlife populations. The latest example is the huge population decline in the rare Ivory Gull as its seasonal foraging patterns are disrupted by the shrinking polar ice cap.

Nebraska Alliance for All-Bird Conservation

On May 8, 2003, representatives from state agencies and conservation groups met at Platte River State Park for the first meeting of the Nebraska Alliance for All-Bird Conservation. While traditional bird conservation efforts are often imposed by agencies in a top-down fashion, the Nebraska efforts seek to emulate new grassroots, coalition, and community-based strategies for integrated bird conservation.
Each state, county, and community should have a bird conservation plan and working group to seek community-based strategies and efforts to protect populations of local birds. Someday, bird conservation groups will be formed for every neighborhood group, city, county, state, bird conservation region, nation, continent, and hemisphere. There is plenty of work for everyone--but in Nebraska and scattered places across the globe, a glorious future of community-based bird conservation is beginning.

Urban Bird Studies

Urban Bird Studies
Cornell University Lab of Ornithology has several different urban bird projects that people can help with, including pigeon studies (see some results), a crow count, and a gull habitat project called Gulls Galore.

The lab's Celebrate Urban Birds program kicks off July 9-18, 2004. Check the website for details on how to participate.

Birds in the Suburban Wilderness

The latest book of nature writing on urban birds is Going Wild: Adventures with Birds in the Suburban Wilderness by Robert Winkler. Selected essays on suburban birds and nature are on his website.

This is a good book for backyard birders, public officials that might be interested in urban nature, or your neighbor. Pick one up for yourself and get another for a friend.

Power Lines

As early as 1876, ornithologist Elliot Coues noted that telegraph wires formed a flight hazard for birds (Coues,E. "The destruction of birds by telegraph wires," American Nature, 10:734, 1876). In 1904, W. Otto Emerson described dozens of shorebirds killed by striking wires running along a road through a salt marsh (Emerson, W. O., "Destruction of birds by wires," Condor 6(2):37-8, 1904). Over 100 years later, 157,810 miles of transmission lines and over 4 million miles of electrical distribution lines pose a potential electrocution hazard, as well as a dangerous flight obstacle for many species—especially those with high wing loading and low aspect, such as rails, cranes, pelicans, and herons (Bevanger 1998). Collisions with transmission lines are a problem for California Condors, and are a major source of mortality for the critically endangered Whooping Crane (Doughty, R. Return of the Whooping Crane, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1989).

In the late 1980s, the Edison Electric Institute formed an Avian Power Line Interaction Committee (APLIC) to address the problem of cranes colliding with power lines in Colorado. Originally comprised of EEI, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Audubon Society, and 10 electric utilities, APLIC has expanded to address additional power line issues faced by birds, and now has over 20 members, and is open to electric utilities, utility organizations, or federal agencies involved in bird and power line interaction issues. In 1994, APLIC published Mitigating Bird Collisions with Power Lines to address the problem of birds colliding with transmission lines. In 1998, they issued an 18 minute companion video showing bird/power line interactions and mitigation techniques.

Some utilities have tried placing large balls or other devices on the wires to make them more visible to birds, but researchers are still trying to figure out how to better minimize the impact of bird-wire collisions.

Birdscapes

The first use of the term "birdscaping" that I can find is in the title of Birdscaping Your Yard, a 47 page pamphlet published by the State of Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection in 1972. The term "birdscaping" is not used in the text itself, where the process of creating wildlife habitat in residential yards is termed wildlife gardening or landscaping.

In 1994, Rodale Press published Birdscaping Your Garden by George Adams. This 208 page reference work uses the term birdscaping frequently in the text, and also refers to created bird habitats as "birdscapes."

In the past decade, the term birdscaping has become more common. A Google search yields 835 websites using the term, including sites published by Wildbirds.com, havahart.com, KVFS TV 12 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and the Sydney, Australia Birds in Backyards Project.

In 2000, Birdscapes was launched as the all bird conservation magazine of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service.

While the term birdscapes and birdscaping are only recently gaining currency, the concept of landscaping to attract birds has historic roots in English bird-bottle and Colonial American birdhouse technologies, the landscape gardening movement in 18th Century England, the bird-preservation studies of Baron von Berlepsch in Germany in the late 1900s, and the popularization of bird feeding, gardening, and landscaping in America during the early 20th Century "Back to Nature" movement.

The strength of birdscaping as a conservation strategy lies in its inherently positive (you can attract and save birds because you like them) rather than negative (birds are being wiped out so we have to do something) approach. In this sense, it transcends the traditional understanding that wildlife management is typically spurred upon realization of declining populations of valued species.

In short, birdscaping is a positive conservation concept and strategy that can appeal to nature-loving homeowners in urban and suburban neighborhoods without resorting to doom-and-gloom rhetoric frequently common in current environmental discourse.

Seattle Urban Nature Project

The Seattle Urban Nature Project is a local non-profit organization dedicated to increasing understanding of Seattle's public natural resources. They have recently mapped the vegetation and wildlife habitat on Seattle's public land, and these maps and data are now available for use and study.

Mapping is the primary activity required for inventorying and modeling ecological activity in a given area. Maps show where habitats are, and reveal opportunities for ecological restoration and management of the urban area. The maps can be used for a host of convservation purposes.

In mapping the urban ecology of Seattle, the project developed its own classification system for urban habitats, based on amount of development and vegetation structure. Their website has an interactive key for classifying these habitats.

Every community in America needs a project like this. The Seattle Urban Nature Project can be a model for others to emulate, and as such, represents the future of community-based urban conservation mapping and planning.

National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitats

In 1973, the National Wildlife Federation started a Backyard Wildlife Habitats program to promote residential landscaping for wildlife. As of April 2004, it had certified 40,300 backyard habitats--up from 22,500 in 1998. While the increasing number of certified habitats is encouraging, it is still a tiny fragment of the more than 68.5 million single-family residences with yards in the United States.

One difficulty in promoting the NWF backyard habitat is that membership in NWF is mainly through magazine subscribers that are affiliated with statewide advocacy organizations. Without local chapters, NWF has to rely on magazine articles and paid staff in regional offices to promote its programs. Recently, NWF has teamed up with Home Depot to conduct backyard habitat clinics to teach people how to improve their yard for wildlife.

New Orleans Bird Studies

One of the challenges of protecting local urban birdscapes is the difficulty in getting good information about what birds are present and what factors influence local bird distribution. Birdwatchers may know a lot about locations for finding the local birds, but may not have scientific information to help explain patterns of local bird distribution. Finding a local biologist or ornithologist doing research in your city can be an excellent way to start get information about local bird populations.

Peter Yaukey of the Department of Geography at the University of New Orleans is a good example of an academic researcher doing excellent research on local bird ecology. Yaukey's research is focused on the effects of development on bird distribution. His papers include:
"Habitat use by migrant birds in a disturbed habitat" (1992), Physical Geography 13:149-159.

Make sure to check your local university for professors or graduate students doing local bird surveys or projects. Having scientifically collected data on your side can be more valuable than years of birdwatching sightings when trying to get local officials to address bird conservation needs.

Audubon at Home

The Audubon at Home program encourages us all to think about the relationship between ourselves, our yards, and the larger environment. The website includes tips on how to implement five major suggestions for improving the environment of our yards: Reduce Pesticides, Conserve Water, Protect Water Quality, Remove Exotic Plants, and Plant Natives. These five steps can improve our own personal health and quality of life, as well as the quality of our environment.

Many local Audubon chapters are promoting this program, including Tulsa, and especially Seattle (cool downloadable book).

The National Audubon Society is teaming up with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to promote this program across the country.

So take a look around your yard, see what more you can do...practice Audubon at Home.

From the latest Audubon Advisory...

INCREASING PROTECTIONS FOR MIGRATORY SONGBIRDS:
Want to help protect some of the most endangered birds in North America -species like the Kirtland's Warbler, Bicknell's Thrush, Black-capped Vireo, as well as a species of great concern, the Cerulean Warbler? Well one way you can is to encourage the U.S. Congress to fully fund the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Fund. Habitat destruction overseas has pushed far too many bird species closer to extinction, and Neotropical migratory bird populations are dwindling due to destruction of their wintering habitats. Congress passed this 5-year law passed in 2000 to address the problem. The Act established a $5 million per year fund to support partnership programs to protect and enhance critical habitats in the U.S., as well as the Caribbean and Latin America, where approximately 5 billion migratory birds of 500 different species spend their winters. Unfortunately, every year, demand for the grants is much greater than the actual funding levels, and because of this, 113 worthy projects could not be funded last year. If we can convince Congress to approve full funding for this program, more of these bird conservation partnerships will get off the ground. Audubon and our partners in conservation are focused on that effort, and you can help by asking your federal lawmakers to support full funding of the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Fund - and keep those beautiful songbirds coming back to our yards! CLICK HERE for more information and to take action.

Washington, DC Bird Bibliography

A good example of a bibliography useful for local urban bird conservation is this bird bibliography for Washington, DC compiled by Ryan Shepard, Collections Librarian, The Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

This bibliography contains notes on birds dating back to an 1862 Smithsonian report on DC birds and an 1871 John Burroughs piece on birds at the capitol (online here).

Comprehensive bibliographies like this make it possible for conservationists to look at historic local bird distributions and birdscapes, contrast those with current conditions, and start to envision more viable urban birdscapes for the future. Barn Owls used to nest in the Smithsonian tower on the National Mall. Wouldn't that be cool...

Local Bird Atlas Projects

One of the first things that needs to be done in trying to preserve and conserve birds and their habitats in urban areas is to find out where birds are in the city. Local bird atlas projects are a great way to find out what birds are around.

In the United States, most states have published atlas projects, and several are conducting their second round of atlasing. County level bird atlas projects, which provide a much finer resolution of bird distribution patterns are rare in the United States. The first county-level bird atlas projects were conducted in Maryland. The Breeding Bird Atlas of Montgomery and Howard Counties, Maryland was published in 1978.

The next county bird atlas--The Atlas of the breeding birds of Los Alamos County, New Mexico--was published in 1992.

California is the epicenter for county bird atlas projects in the United States. Bird atlas projects have been completed for Marin (1993), Monterey (1993), and Sonoma (1995) Counties.

One of the most recent county-level bird atlas projects is being completed in San Diego, CA (field observations concluded in 2002).

These local atlas projects are great because they show where birds are at a local level. If each city or metropolitan area had a bird atlas project, local bird conservation organizations would have better data on where birds are and how they might be impacted by development projects.

There are other ways to collect distribution data for an urban area. Point counts spread across a city can provide valuable information on where birds are located and what habitats they are utilizing. Local bird surveys of this type have been conducted in many cities, with the most extensive projects being the Tucson Bird Count, Washington, DC Project Birdscape (see Hadidian, J. et al. "A citywide breeding bird survey for Washington, D.C.," Urban Ecosystems 1(1997): 87-102.), and the Baltimore Urban Birdscape Project.

If you want to conserve birds in your city or town, you need to know what species are present, where they are, and what resources they need. It is vital that we conduct atlas projects or surveys in our cities if we are going to protect and conserve urban bird populations.

John Marzluff and Seattle Urban Bird Ecology

John Marzluff is one of the premiere urban bird ecologists in the country. His work with the University of Washington Urban Ecology program (here) is addressing many of the most difficult issues, including population dynamics of birds in fragmented urban landscapes.

A Christian Science Monitior article about his work with American Crows gives another good indication of what his lab is looking at.

In 2001, Marzluff co-edited Avian Ecology and Conservation in an Urbanizing World , a review of bird ecology studies in urban environments. It's a very expensive book, but worth finding at a university library. This book is the current state of the art review of urban bird ecology.

In 2001, Marzluff and Ken Ewing published an article in the journal Restoration Ecology, which gives 15 suggestions for restoring bird populations in fragmented urban areas (abstract here).

Urban Birds on Birdzilla

The Birdzilla World Bird Omnibus website has the complete text of the classic 1937-68 Bent's Life Histories of North American Birds. Until recently, these were the standard life history accounts for most birds in North America, and they still provide a remarkable view of birds--especially urban birds--from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

An easy way to search this site for information about birds in urban areas is to do a site-specific google search. At google, enter a search term, followed by site:birdzilla.com. This will return all entries with that term from within the birdzilla site (of course, this little google search tip works for any website). For instance, a search for lawns site:birdzilla.com reveals early statements about Anna's Hummingbirds bathing in lawn sprinklers and Black Phoebes "sweeping over city lawns, or even hunting in the artificial canyons of downtown Los Angeles."

You can do a google search to look for mention of birds in your own hometown or to see how many birds foraged in garbage dumps. While this information may not help you immediately save the birds in your city, it can help place urban bird behavior in a historic and ecological context...and provide interesting stories to share with others while watching urban birds.

Bird Health and Electromagnetic Fields

We've all seen birds perched on electric wires--ever wondered if electromagnetic fields generated by power lines have any effect on birds?

A study of birds nesting under power lines found reduced nesting success in Tree Swallows, but not in House Wrens or Eastern Bluebirds. Recent studies of American Kestrels found electromagnetic fields to effect melatonin levels and growth of hatchlings--according to one article, "EMF exposure affected
reproductive success of kestrels, increasing fertility, egg size, embryonic development, and fledging success but reducing hatching success."

A helpful literature review with references introduces potential health effects of electromagnetic fields to humans and other species. Magda Havas of Trent University in Ontario has published a more complete review of health effects. While these studies focus on human health, they do present evidence of effects on birds as well.

Urban Black Vultures

Formidable looking, the large black vulture is often considered a nuisance in residential suburbs of the Southeastern United States. A news report from Virginia indicated that calls complaining of property damage rose from 2 in 1990 to 174 in 2001--making it the third most destructive wild animal in the state.

Though many might consider this a recent phenomenon--with wild birds now being encroached upon by residential subdivisions, in actuality, black vultues have been fixtures of urban areas since the first cities were built in the American South. Alexander Wilson reported the birds in Charleston, SC in the early 1800s, and a few years later, John J. Audubon even reported that the birds would warm themselves on chimneys in cities. They were considered ugly but useful for cleaning up the cities--even though they were known to occasionally vomit down chimneys!

In the age of high tech manufacturing, a black vulture roost on a power tower in Austin, Texas was implicated in creating small variations in current flow that caused havoc with local computer chip manufacturers that need a steady and stable electrical stream.

Black vultures love power towers, with their high exposed perches and clear lines of flight making it easy to land and take off in the evenings and early mornings.

Especially problematic roost sites might be dispersed with installation of architectural bird control devices such as Nixalite--a bristly wire strip that discourages birds from perching.

Urban vultures...another sign of the times. As long as we provide roost sites and a source for food, these creatures will be watching us from a perch in our neighborhoods.

Endangered Domestic Waterfowl

Though domestic birds are not usually considered as conservation priorities, a recent census of domestic duck and waterfowl breeds in the United States finds that many breeds are threatened with extinction. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), 10 domestic duck breeds have populations below 500 individuals, with several breeds reduced to single breeding populations.

Even some of the more familiar breeds in your local park may be threatened, such as the Chinese Goose (photo) which is reportedly down to fewer than 5000 birds.

The domestic ducks you see at your local park are just the tip of a rich cultural and genetic waterfowl heritage created by hundreds of years of dedicated waterfowl breeders. While urban bird conservation is focused on protecting and preserving populations of native birds, the loss of any of these duck or geese breeds would also be a tragic cultural and genetic loss.

Acid Rain and Birds

Two years ago, researchers announced that acid rain might be linked to declines in Wood Thrush and other bird populations in the N.E. United States (full report here). Acid rain is produced when sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) mix with cloud moisture before falling to the earth as rain. Acid rain has many negative effects, and can only be stopped by reducing airborn pollutants caused by burning fossil fuels.

Apparently, acid rain leaches calcium from soils, which seems to impact availability of calcium for birds that are egg-laying, though the exact mechanisms have yet to be identified.

The EPA's market-based Acid Rain Program reduced acid rainfall in the 1990s, but the Sierra Club and National Audubon Society report that Bush's additional market-based Clear Skies proposal will have a negative impact on human and bird health.

Just like a canary in a coal mine, the fate of the wood thrush may be forshadowing our own fate if we cannot regulate our industrial and urban society's auto and power plant emissions .

Bird Feeding May Be Killing Birds

According to research (read report here) conducted by Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute biologist Scott Henke, bird feeders may unwittingly poison many of the birds attracted to seed in their yard. The poison is aflatoxin, a harmful chemical produced by Aspergillus fungus commonly found growing on commercially available bird seed--especially mixtures that include dried corn--and exposure to the chemical at small doseages disrupts the immune system of birds, and higher doseages cause bird mortality.

Bird feeders should keep bird seed from becoming moist, though the fungus can grow even in drier conditions. Only storage of sealed containers of bird seed in a freezer appears to prevent the fungus from growing on bird seed.

Bird watching and conservation organizations in the U.K. seem to be more aware of this threat than those in the U.S. As of today, there is no mention of aflatoxin on the websites of Wild Birds Unlimited, the National Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy, or the National Wildlife Federation. Hopefully, these organizations will help bring attention to this problem, and help ensure that urban bird feeders do not unwittingly kill the birds they love.

Artificial Night Lighting and Birds

For over 100 years, observers have noted that artificial lighting caused problems for birds and other wildlife. In his classic text that some see as the start of the modern conservation movement (Mand and Nature, 1864), George Perkins Marsh reported on over 100 birds attracted and killed by the first lighting of the lighthouse on Cape Cod.

A conference convened by the Urban Wildlands Group in California addressed the ecological consequences of artificial night lighting (abstracts here). An accompanying bibliography of material on the problems of night lights and wildlife is online here. It documents effects of lighting on plants, aquatic invertebrates, terrestrial invertebrates, amphibians, sea turtles, other reptiles, fish, birds, and mammals.

For birds, city lights can disorient them during their migratory passage, as well as alter the daily rythms of resident birds. I've seen grackles feeding under the lights of a gas station in the middle of the night, and it is common to see nighthawks foraging over parking lot lights across North America.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of night lights, is their attraction for migratory birds. Lights can draw birds close to towers and skyscrapers, where they can be injured or killed by colliding with the structures. Many organizations are working to protect birds from these nocturnal dangers, including www.towerkill.com (extensive info, including links to USFWS towerkill bibliography) and The International Dark-Sky Association.

Additional good info can be found in news reports here, here, and here.

Proposed solutions include turning off skyscraper lights at night--see the work pioneered by the Toronto-based Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP)--and passing ordinances to restrict the types and number of outdoor light fixtures.

Introduced Species

Urban areas often host exotic bird species that have been introduced deliberately or escaped from pet owners or bird collections. Monk Parakeets are one of the most commonly encountered exotic bird in American cities--they are establised in scattered cities including Chicago, Austin, New York, and Miami. Many other parrot species are common in southern California and Florida--with occasional birds reported throughout the country. Exotic waterfowl and other cage birds are also frequently released and observed flying free in U.S. cities.

While many people enjoy seeing exotic birds near their homes, birdwatchers often ignore them, since they are considered non-native and do not count on their personal life lists. However, in an attempt to find out how common exotic species are in urban areas, I am compiling a list of exotic species recorded in U.S. cities.

If you have seen an exotic or escaped bird in your city, email me the details: fergus at mail.utexas.edu.

Farming with the Wild

Yesterday I gave a talk about creating bird habitats in agricultural areas at a Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory workshop with Daniel Imhoff, executive director of Watershed Media and author of Farming with the Wild.

As cities sprawl out into rural areas, they increasingly draw upon distant agricultural areas for their food supply. The pesticide-ridden and soil-depleting industrial agriculture provides little by way of habitat needs for birds and other wildlife. Imhoff's book highlights alternative agricultural practices that provide habitat for birds and wildlife. Imhoff is also the co-founder of the Wild Farm Alliance, a group organized "to promote agriculture that helps to protect and restore wild Nature."

Immigration, Sprawl, and Bird Conservation

Recent reports have highlighted the fact that population growth--with its attendent urban sprawl and habitat loss--is mostly due to immigration rather than human reproduction. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that the U.S. population will reach 403,687,000 by 2050. If current immigration continues at this pace, urban areas willl expand and local bird habitats will be under extreme development pressure. In 1999, the National Association of Home Builders reported that "the U.S. needs to construct between 1.3 and 1.5 million new housing units annually during the next decade simply to accommodate an anticipated 30 million increase in the nation’s population."

A considerable challenge for conservationists is to work with elected officials and non-governmental organizations to find ways to curb immigration and resource use in the United States, while working to improve living conditions globally in order to limit population movements.

Urban Birds Bibliography

The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory (RMBO) near Brighton, Colorado, has an extensive (over 1100 entry) urban birds bibliography--a wealth of information for conservationists working in urban areas. RMBO was founded in 1988 "to address a bird conservation and related public education need in the western U.S." It is a leader in conservation efforts, and this bibliography is just one of their many valuable online resources. RMBO is a membership-based organization--membership info here.

Save Birds--Go Vegetarian

Recently, 57% of U.S. corn production has been used for livestock feed--that's 45 million (of 79 million total) acres. An additional 60 million acres are used for growing hay crops. If we were to reduce our meat consumption, we could free up over 100 million acres--over 164 thousand square miles, just larger than the state of California--of corn and hay cropland for birds and wildlife. Already, 34 million acres of American farmland are out of production--enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program.

Mass vegetarian conversions are unlikely, so corn and hay farmers are safe. But urban bird enthusiasts should think about all that potential bird habitat needed to support their meat-heavy diets (215.9 lbs/year).

Harmony, FL--Example of Conservation Community

According to an upcoming paper presentation by Geographer Jennifer Wolch, Harmony, Florida "has gone further than any other major conservation community in attempting to implement an alternative philosophy toward human-animal and nature-society relations, and is thus offers insights into the limits to the conservation community model for reshaping human-animal relations in American cities."

Environmental programs at Harmony include a habitat management plan, full-time wildlife manager, and incorporates environmental guidelines into homeowner documents. Habitat preservation efforts include a 31 acre gopher tortoise habitat, a naturalistic golf course, and a two acre endangered orchid preserve. Only 30% of the 11,000 acre property will be developed.

Hopefully, as our cities inevitably grow, more developments like Harmony, FL will take wildlife into account.

Windows and Birds

An estimated 100 million to 1 billion birds die each year in North America after smacking into our lovely plate glass windows. Websites by the Humane Society of the United States, Wild Birds Unlimited, CNN, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the National Wildlife magazine address this issue, which is probably the number one killer of birds in America.

For those wanting more than the popular media discussion of this problem, a classic paper on window kills by leading researcher Daniel Klem is online, and an earlier paper is here.

We all enjoy large windows and all the light they let into our homes and offices, but they are killing birds. The most promising possibility for addressing this issue is may be the film used for advertising on bus windows--which allows viewers inside to see out, but appears opaque on the outside. However, most fils are made of toxic PVC, a less toxic alternative should be developed. If inexpensive, attractive, and durable films can be developed, homeowners will be able to enjoy their views while ensuring the safety of their bird neighbors.

Bananas (and Coffee, Cacao, etc.) For Birds

Urbanites in North America may not think much about how their diet impacts bird populations, but Laura Erickson recently raised a question on the conservation through birding email list linking tropical food production to rain forest destruction and bird habitat loss. Production of coffee, bananas, oranges, and cacao generate huge social and ecological costs that North American consumers do not have to pay for in the market price of these foods. One interesting report online charts the ecological footprint of a banana. The Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture program is working to support more environmentally friendly ways of producing these tropical export items and lists certified distributors including Chiquita (click on their corporate responsibility link).

The shade-grown coffee movement has become popular in recent years, emphasizing ecologically more sustainable and bird-friendly coffee production. See the Seattle Audubon, Smithsonian National Zoological Park, and American Birding Association resources on buying bird-friendly coffee.

In 1998 there was a global conference to promote shade-grown cacao (primary ingredient in chocolate). The Smithsonian resource page provides information on this alternative to ecologically destructive cacao monocroping.

It may take doing a little research, but North American consumers can find more ecologically sustainable tropical products--even if it may mean paying a bit more to know that your diet is not as threatening to the tropical bird habitats that support many of our migratory species during the winter months. Urban bird conservation is more than just protecting birds in urban areas--it means protecting and managing all habitats that urban birds depend on--including areas used to grow our favorite tropical foods in developing nations.

Global Warming and Urban Birds

A recently prepared report for the U.S. Department of Defense outlines possible problems and global security issues related to global warming. While possibly a worst-case scenario, the report addresses the kids of uncertainty that must be planned for in adaptive managment situations such as urban bird conservation. If U.S. weather patterns and global security issues change as outlined in this report, bird populations will be increasingly stressed while resources for dealing with biodiversity issues may be harder to obtain. While it is hard to know how probable the outlined scenario may be, it raises the questions of uncertainty and sustainability in the face of global climate change and insecurity.

At any rate, global climate change is likely to have an impact on bird distributions, timing of migration and breeding, and may alter songbird diets. Any attempt to manage urban areas for sustainable bird populations will need to address these potential effects of climate change.

Purple Martins
This past weekend I conducted a workshop for Purple Martin landlords. The Purple Martin Conservation Association (PMCA) has a lot of good information on how to attract and take care these birds--which are often called "America's Most-Wanted Bird." Other national organizations dedicated to these birds are the Purple Martin Society, N.A. and the Nature Society. The Purple Martin supports a growing industry of bird house manufacturers--including Lone Star Purple Martins, Trio, S&K, Heritage Farms, and Coates. The PMCA catalog or Purple Martin Society, N.A. catalog reveal myriad additional offerings for martin landlords, including my own book.

Martin house landlords are often passionately dedicated to their birds, spending many hours and lots of money on their birds. Martins are almost completely dependent on human-provided nesting sites east of the Rockies. Fortunately, these birds seem to do well in suburban locations, and martin landlording may become an increasingly important avenue for people to become interested in urban birds and bird conservation. One challenge is to get martin landlords interested in other birds as well.

Feeding Ducks
This morning I had to watch my two-year old son for an hour, so I took him for a walk to the University of Texas campus turtle pond. We watched the turtles and fed old bread to pigeons and grackles. This got me thinking about the importance of feeding ducks in urban culture. Most American cities have a place where domestic waterfowl hang out, and most of us have probably taken our old bread down there to feed the ducks.

Though most experts warn against feeding ducks, watching my son feeding pigeons this morning made me wonder if urban duck feeding might not be an important way for people to connect with nature. Critics would argue that domestic ducks are not natural. Others argue that bread is not good for ducks. Too many ducks can spread diseases among the ducks, and mess up the environment. Madison, WI has banned duck feeding in local parks. There are many other examples of cities trying to deal with duck-feeding problems.

Most discussions of feral urban ducks seem to focus on potential problems, but what about the experience of interacting with animals, of feeding them, in public. Kids love this. Might this not be an appropriate way to get people to start connecting with nature? What are the prospects of using urban duck feeding as a conservation strategy--a way to get people to enjoy and start thinking about the urban environment? Could cities place signage at urban duck feeding locations--maybe with duck behavior notes, or info about domestic duck breeds--something to help the duck feeders connect to the ducks while nudging them towards other ways of appreciating nature? While urban duck feeding can be a problem, maybe there are ways to turn this important cultural activity into an environmental education or conservation strategy.

Recent Southern California Fires and Endangered Birds
Protecting endangered birds in urban areas requires that enough habitat is present for animals to recover after catastrophic events such as hurricanes or wildfires. According to a recent news story, the fires in southern California last fall destroyed large amounts of critical habitat for endangered California Gnatcatchers and Least Bell's Vireos. The gnatcatchers lost 4% of their habitat, including 28% of their San Diego County stronghold.

Fortunately, the habitat can grow back, if it remains protected, but local bird populations will have to adjust to new landscape patterns and loss of nesting territories.

For more information on the California Gnatcatcher, see an abstract of a metapopulation study and an Audubon WatchList fact sheet.

A nifty website from a course on urban forestry taught by Joseph Murray at Blue Ridge Community College--Overview of Urban Forestry. Good model for getting students to look at urban ecosystems, complete with lecture notes and assignments.

Yesterday I was able to attend a lecture by William Rees, the zoologist and regional planner from British Columbia who created the concept of the ecological footprint--the area of land needed to sustain human activity. Each American needs an average of 22 acres of land to support their post-industrial lifestyles. That is the land needed to grow their food and extract other resources, and to absorb the waste they create. This is more productive land area than is available in the United States, so we have to use land in other countries--grow lettuce in Mexico, extract oil from the Middle East, etc.

Nations, Cities, and Individuals each have ecological footprints (measure yours)

The ecological footprint concept illustrates that resources used by humans are resources unavailable to other species (including birds) and other humans (especially those who can't afford them). The land we use to grow corn is land that doesn't support the native woodland or grassland birds that would have previously occupied the area. Since the ecological footprint of a modern urban city extends beyond its immediate environs--true urban bird conservation must address rural areas used to support cities and the birds displaced in those areas.

In addition, we must address the sustainability of our bird conservation efforts. If our efforts to protect bird populations involve increasing our ecological footprint, they will ultimately prove unsustainable. Rooftop gardens, wildscaping, and endangered species programs are all effective--but costly, both monetarily and in use of resources. A largely unaddressed question in bird conservation is how to make our efforts ecologically sustainable from the perspective of resource use.

From Australia, a great urban ecology program in Adelaide. BioCITY Centre for Urban Habitat will, among other things, seek to "bring back the birds" and look at roof-top parks or "bush-tops" as an alternative new habitat for urban centers.

A news story about the project.

Adelaide is way out front on many of these urban habitat issues, with significant official support--see page 1911 of these 17 March 2003 Adelaide city council minutes and an official background paper.

This may be the world's most detailed and organized attempt to improve the habitat quality of a city--a great model for what can be accomplished in a major city.

I just got back from an amazing landscape architecture symposia sponsored by the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. There were some amazing presentations, including a talk on urban ecology by Steward Pickett, head of the Baltimore Long Term Ecological Research project and a talk by Ann Whiston Spirn, author of the classic urban environmental design text The Granite Garden--see her work on the West Philadelphia Landscape Project. William Mitchell, Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT talked about telecommunication networks--great stuff that brought to mind the problems birds have with powerlines and communication towers and the work to deal with this problem at www.towerkill.com.

One of the most inspiring talks was by veteran landscape architect Grant Jones, founder of Jones & Jones landscape architecture firm in Seattle--looking at poetry and landscape--including designing for the four worlds of animals, nature, humans, and spirit. I'm sure I'll have more on this later...but very fruitful conversations and presentations.

This past weekend I conducted an owl ecology and nest box workshop at the Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory in Austin, Texas. We had 60 participants and created an online notebook to share ideas and information about owls using human-constructed nesting and roosting boxes. In many parts of the country, urban screech owls will readily nest in boxes provided for them...as will Barred Owls and Burrowing Owls. Check out this nest box cams for Barred Owls, information on artificial burrows for Burrowing Owls, and links for info on owl nest boxes.

If you have an owl box, please share your experiences and expertise hosting owls at the Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory Owl Monitoring Website.

This from the latest Audubon Advisory, Audubon's Twice-Monthly Legislative Update, January 16, 2004, (Vol. 2004, Issue 1) online at
Audubon: Issues & Actions:

"URBAN STORMWATER
On November 12th, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee allotted $958 million dollars over six years for nationwide efforts to control pollution from roads, buildings, driveways and lawns - referred to as 'urban stormwater.' As you know, urban stormwater is the technical name for rainwater washing over dirty surfaces like roads and sidewalks, flushing cigarette butts, pieces of paper or plastic bags, detergents, oils and fertilizers, and drips of gasoline directly into our streams, rivers and beach areas, after traveling through stormwater drains. Stormwater runoff causes impaired water quality and nutrient pollution in the bays or estuaries that the runoff flows into. Nutrient pollution can result in low levels of dissolved oxygen that result in fish kills and die-offs of submerged aquatic plants that are vitally important to the survival of so many aquatic species and waterfowl. It's a growing problem local and state governments are beginning to face. Setting aside new federal dollars for stormwater programs is a big first step! The full Senate is expected to take up the measure in 2004 - and we'll be counting on your support to help encourage the Senate to push this through! "

Besides increasing runoff or stormwater, higher levels of impervious cover in cities also limits bird habitat. By decreasing the area of impervious surfaces, more land is available for vegetation and bird habitat. The creation of rain gardens--vegetated areas to trap runoff--in place of storm drains, is a viable strategy for both improving water quality, reducing flooding, and creating bird habitat. There are excellent web resources on rain gardens, including this neighborhood site from Minnesota, with valuable links.

Conservation Ecology: Biodiversity, Urban Areas, and Agriculture: Locating Priority Ecoregions for Conservation

This recent article by Taylor Ricketts of the World Wildlife Fund and Marc Imhoff of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center combined remotely sensed data on urbanization with species richness measures to determine where urbanization may pose the greatest threats to biodiversity in North America. They found high levels of biodiversity and urbanization in the southeastern U.S., California, the U.S. midwest, the Atlantic Coast, and south Texas. Since the authors find that "urban cover is positively correlated with both species richness and endemism," they conclude that "conservation efforts in densely populated areas therefore may be equally important (if not more so) as preserving remote parks in relatively pristine regions."

Welcome to Urban Birdscapes...musings on wildlife and nature conservation in North American cities from a PhD candidate in Geography at the University of Texas-Austin. This blog is dedicated to urban birds and the people who study, enjoy, and work to protect them.

UPDATE: 17 April 2026

I started this blog as a grad student in Texas, but left Austin to take a job for Audubon, where I ended up as their senior scientist for urban bird conservation. I finished my PhD in Urban Bird Conservation at UT-Austin in 2008. After Audubon shut down my program in the great recession of 2009, I taught geography and environmental studies courses at several universities in and around Philadelphia--including almost 10 years at Rowan University. In 2024 I left academia and moved to Mendon in the Rochester NY suburbs. 

My current plan is to add periodic information here on how to make cities and towns good for birds and people, including thoughts on the possibilities and limitations of urban bird conservation.