Toronto is one of the biggest cities in North America and is proud to call itself bird-friendly. It was one of the first cities to turn off lights during migration, asks new building designs to avoid bird-window collisions and is creating Bird Flyways for safe passage through the city. Toronto is also home to York University’s new program called “Birds in the City.”

I co-founded this environmental education program to combine my scientific experitise with educators and use birds to teach children the joys and importance of the natural world. The working group at York University includes professors and graduate students from the Faculty of Education, Faculty of Environmental Studies and Faculty of Science and Engineering. When I first discovered the BirdSleuth curriculum at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology it seemed too good to be true: a program to get city kids outdoors and doing real science with real birds!

In 2008, in collaboration with Jennifer Fee, we organized workshops and training seminars for teachers at Toronto schools as well as teachers-in-training at York’s Faculty of Education. Funding from private foundations and individuals, along with York University funding, allowed us to offer BirdSleuth curriculum kits at a discount and to donate field guides to some schools. Several local naturalist clubs have supported our Bird Sleuth program and Wild Birds Unlimited stores in Toronto are advertising our program in their newsletter and provide discounts for schools using BirdSleuth.

One of my graduate students designed a web site (http://birdsrus.yorku.ca) to provide local coordination and support to teachers. This web site allows teachers and schools to request workshops, volunteer bird watchers to register to visit schools in their community, and provides links to guide teachers and their students in taking action to help their local environment. The web site also hosts an electronic “I Wonder Board” where teachers and students can post questions or photos and have them answered by a local bird expert. 

One of the highlights of my year was walking into an inner city school near campus and seeing dozens of colorful bird drawings on display near the main office, each carefully labeled with a common and scientific name. I was visiting the school with a box of stuffed bird specimens to show to the BirdSleuth students. Hands quickly shot into the air, faces straining to get my attention, as students begged me to show them their BirdSleuth focus bird.  One grade 5 student did not hesitate to correct the professor when I told them that robins are common city birds (“you mean American robins?”). A few weeks earlier these kids had never even heard of a red-winged blackbird or goldfinch (sorry, American goldfinch)!

Bridget Stutchbury

Professor of Biology at York University

and Author of Silence of the Songbirds (Walker & Co. 2007)