The existing network of bird conservation partners and resources provides an excellent opportunity for land trusts to engage in conservation at different scales. This Resource Directory is designed especially for land trusts: bringing many of the resources together in one place and helping navigate the resources to find what is pertinent to land trusts. The resources can be useful for land trusts’ funding proposals, community outreach, strategic conservation planning, land acquisition and easement justification, management plan development, and monitoring. The resources on these pages are organized by four categories – Engaging People, Planning, Management Guides, Presentations and Publications, and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice.
If there are additional resources that you’ve found helpful and would like added to the site, please email us with the resource name, category in which it should be listed, online link, and a description of how it’s useful to land trusts. We value your contributions!
- Birding Trails
Birding trails are scattered across North America like individual strings of pearls. These trails, covering expanses of roadway across many miles, offer birders, naturalists, and general eco-tourists grand opportunities to explore diverse habitats near home and in distant places.
- Macaulay Library
The Macaulay Library provides access to the world’s largest archive of wildlife sounds and videos, and allows users to search recordings by species for birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, and even fishes. Additionally, digital audio guides are available for download.
- Celebrate Urban Birds
Celebrate Urban Birds is a citizen-science project developed to reach diverse urban audiences who do not already participate in science or scientific investigation. The project collects data from participants, providing valuable knowledge of how different environments influence birds in urban areas.
- BirdSleuth K-12
BirdSleuth K-12 provides innovative resources that build science skills while inspiring young people to connect to local habitats, explore biodiversity, and engage in citizen-science projects through inquiry-based science curriculum and activities.
- NestWatch
NestWatch is a nationwide nest-monitoring program used to study the current condition of breeding bird populations and how they may be changing over time as a result of climate change, habitat degradation and loss, expansion of urban areas, and the introduction of non-native plants and animals.
- All About Birds
All About Birds is an online guide to birds and bird watching with information about 589 North American species – identify birds, learn about life history, listen to sounds, and watch videos of bird behavior.
- State of the Birds on Private Lands
State of the Birds on Private Lands is a report produced by the Cornell Lab and other national conservation partners that highlights the enormous contributions that private landowners make to bird and habitat conservation.
- Important Bird Areas
The Important Bird Areas Program is a global initiative of BirdLife International, implemented by Audubon and local partners in the United States. The IBA program identifies and aims to conserve areas that are vital to birds and other biodiversity.
- Waterbird Plan
A plan created to support a vision in which the distribution, diversity, and abundance of populations and habitats of breeding, migratory, and nonbreeding waterbirds are sustained or restored throughout the lands and waters of North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
- North American Waterfowl Management Plan
The North American Waterfowl Management Plan is a strategy, crafted by the waterfowl management community in the United States and Canada, to increase waterfowl populations through habitat protection, restoration, and enhancement.