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.