Urban Bird Studies News

"Celebrate Urban Birds!" 2007
Would you like to hold a "Celebrate Urban Birds!" event in your neighborhood? Everyone is invited…including youth groups, libraries, museums, businesses, afterschools, senior centers and more. No knowledge of birds required! Materials will be available to everyone.

People across the country will "Celebrate Urban Birds!" anytime during May 10 -13 by participating in science, art, and gardening activities focused on birds and local habitat improvement. You or your group can spend one hour or up to four whole days participating! It's FREE!
· Learn about birds in cities
· Collect data about birds in your city
· Learn about greening cities
· Learn about gardening for birds (including container plantings)
· Improve bird habitat in your neighborhood
· Participate in the arts and music focused on birds
· Share your data, photos, art, stories, and habitat improvements with others

To learn more and to register, please visit the Celebrate Urban Birds web site.

Workshop Held at the Lab of Ornithology in December
Educators and group leaders from around the country travelled to the "Lab of O" to learn about, provide input on, and connect with Lab staff on December 14th. Exciting presentations on the science behind urban greening, gardening for the birds in cities, marketing ideas, and facilitated discussions about regional celebration plans were included.

Participants who went on the early morning bird walk were even treated to close views of Pileated Woodpeckers.

Presenters included Vice President for Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society and director of Audubon's Seabird Restoration Program, Stephen Kress, Elissa Wolfson, editor and writer at the Cornell Plantations, Caren Cooper, research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, doctoral student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell.

Gretchen Ferenz and Lisa Babcock from Cornell Cooperative Extension in New York City also were an integral part of the day.

You can view selected workshop presentations and see some of the ideas shared by regional partners by visiting the web site.

DVD Available!
All of our introductory and instructional videos are now available on one DVD. The DVD includes bird guides with cool facts for each of the projects, navigation in both Spanish and English, PigeonWatch color morph guide, and much more. Included is a handy bird identification guide of five common city birds that you can take with you to watch birds. If you'd like to purchase the DVD please send $5 per DVD to Urban Bird Studies, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, NY 14850 or email us at urbanbirds@cornell.edu. Let us know if the cost is a hardship for you or your program.

Interesting Research
Why are green spaces in urban locations so important?

-Aggression is significantly lower among people who have some kind of nature outside their apartments vs those who don't.
-Green spaces foster a sense of community.
-Green outdoor spaces tend to allow for more creative play and more adult interaction.
-Girls who grow up with greener views from home show less impulsive behavior.
-Residents living in greener surroundings report lower levels of fear and less violence.

These are some of the recent findings of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Learn more at the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory web site: http://www.lhhl.uiuc.edu/

The Pigeon Paradox
The Pigeon Paradox: Dependence of Global Conservation on Urban Nature by Robert Dunn, M. Gavin, M. Sanchez, and J. Solomon.

Read an exciting article in December's issue of Conservation Biology that discusses achieving global conservation by promoting direct experiences with urban species. It is thought that people are more likely to become involved in conservation action when they have direct experiences in the natural world. 80% of people are found in cities, therefore, humans mostly experience nature though much maligned urban species such as pigeons and other introduced species thought of as urban pests. The paper examines the idea that perhaps global conservation will depend more and more on people's interactions with urban ecosystems.