birds Archives - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
Things to do

Lisa S. French

2-minute read

With feelings of awe and maybe a little envy, we marvel at our avian friends’ ability to take to the skies without a plane ticket. For one hundred years, scientists have studied the origins of bird flight to determine how feathered creatures evolved to achieve the capacity for lift-off. We now have a pretty good idea that the reptilian animals that ultimately developed into what we recognize as birds started on Earth 160 million years ago as ground-up, running flappers rather than tree-down gliders. What the aerial wonders didn’t anticipate when they successfully tested their wings was the eventual addition of flight path impediments otherwise known as buildings.

According to the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, every year, between 365 and 988 million birds are killed because of building collisions. It seems only fair, now that birds have done the evolutionary heavy lifting of learning to fly, we do what we can to keep them in the air. While we can’t eliminate built structures, we can make them safer for our favorite fliers thanks to innovative solutions pioneered by conservationists at the Audubon.

Creating Bird-Friendly Skies
To help the billions of birds that migrate every spring and fall steer clear of the artificial light and skyglow from buildings that lead to collisions, Audubon has initiated Lights Out, a national effort to turn off unnecessary lights during hours they are likely to attract night travelers. Working with building owners, managers, and residents—people like you—the Lights Out program aims to reduce avian mortality rates by preventing birds from becoming confused by artificial light sources and colliding with windows and walls in the path of flyways.

Keeping it dark by implementing Audubon’s simple, inexpensive solutions can enable migrating and nocturnal species to safely make their way to wintering and breeding grounds, with the cost-cutting, planet-cooling bonus of reducing energy use. Find out what you can do to help create bird-friendly skies right here.

ICYMI Nature News

Awe-Inspiring Avian Beauty
If you need a striking visual reminder of avian beauty, wildlife photographer Rachel Bigsby captures the beautiful essence of bird life in her award-winning photographs. See her work here.

Blue Whales Are Back
Good news for the recovery of the world’s largest animal—the blue whale. According to Antarctic researchers, after two decades of monitoring the Southern Ocean for the majestic mammals’ distinctive songs, there are encouraging signs that blue whales are making a comeback after centuries of industrial whaling.

What’s a Kowari, Anyway?
Odds are are you’ve never seen a kowari, but Australian conservationists are hoping to save the endangered, brush-tailed cousin of the Tasmanian Devil from extinction, so you’ll get your chance. Meet the mini marsupial.

Orangutan Heal Thyself
For the first time in the wild, an oh-so-clever orangutan has been observed treating a facial wound with a medicinal plant after a dust-up with another male. No urgi-care for this smart fellow.

Just How Noisy Are Cicadas?
You might imagine that millions of cicadas would be pretty darn noisy. But how noisy? Noisy enough to report them to the police apparently. Officer, what in the heckin’ heck is that racket?

Blue Rock Thrush Makes an Unprecedented Pit Stop in the U.S.
In what may be the first-ever sighting in the U.S., a very rare, very pretty, little blue rock thrush has been captured on film by an amateur photographer in Oregon—peak birdwatcher’s envy.

Aquatic Bumblebees
Scientists have learned that the queens of a common species of North American bumblebee can survive up to a week underwater during hibernation. Super adaptable scuba bees!

Natural Magic
And finally, if you love poetry and you love science, have we got a book for you. Natural Magic—Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science by Renée Bergland, illuminates the parallels in the thinking of the two keenly original observers of the natural world.

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Lisa S. French May 7, 2024

New Zealand’s Bird of the Century is…

Following a Forest & Bird campaign gone massively global, thanks to the unbridled enthusiasm of Last Week Tonight host John Oliver, the Bird of the Century results are in, and it’s Mr. Oliver’s pick for the win: the orange-mulleted, prolific puker, the one and only Australasian crested grebe, a.k.a. the pūteketeke.

Even though we’re kākāpō loyalists, because a clumsy, slow-moving, flightless bird needs all the love it can get, every New Zealand bird is a winner as far as we’re concerned. And if all that media frenzy ratchets up the global enthusiasm for protecting endangered bird species everywhere, we’re all in—keep the critical conservation momentum going!

And congratulations pūteketeke! Long may you weed dance!

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Lisa S. French November 14, 2023

Support the Birds Down Under

What could possibly be 100 times more exciting than choosing Forest & Bird’s New Zealand Bird of the Year?

Choosing the New Zealand Bird of the Century!

Voting opens today, 10/30. It’s time to get behind your feathery favorites and celebrate and support the conservation of some of the rarest and most spectacular bird species on the planet.

So, which winged wonder do you think should capture the centennial crown?

The charismatic kākāpō, magnetic morepork, or maybe the tenacious takahē?

You can check out all the candidates and vote for the birdiest New Zealand Bird of the Century right here.

Good luck! Here’s to another hundred years of Forest & Bird conservation.

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Lisa S. French October 30, 2023

Murmurations: Starling Sound Shapes

2-minute read

Whirring, thrumming waves and swirls. Pulsing, whooshing twists and twirls.

Murmurations, the mesmerizing sound shapes of hundreds to hundreds of thousands of common starlings, are one of the most spectacular displays of collective animal movement in nature. How and why these feathery shapeshifters gather to perform their synchronized aerial maneuvers has long captured the imagination of both scientists and curious casual observers of evening skies.

From late fall to early spring, these birds of a feather flock together at dusk in continuously morphing configurations before descending in one fell swoop to roost. Are the massive gatherings a safety-in-numbers strategy to confuse predators or a signal to attract more birds to create warmer roosts?

To determine what drives the ebb and flow of these spontaneous avian zoomies, scientists analyzed videos of starlings flying in formation and reconstructed the movements of individual birds, looking for patterns in behavior. The analysis revealed that starlings navigating in a murmuration at up to 20 m.p.h. have an amazing ability to rapidly maneuver in sync with fellow fliers, reacting to changes in direction in under 100 milliseconds. Each bird follows the behavior of the six or seven closest neighbors, and the wave of perpetual movement ripples through the flock forming fluttering sound shapes in the evening sky.

Researchers studying details of over 3,000 murmurations gathered by citizen scientists across 23 European countries believe that starlings form giant catch me if you can bird clouds and descend en masse to roosting sites to avoid being singled out and picked off by aerial predators.

Interestingly, the dynamic rotating shapes formed by the safer together survival strategy seem to follow patterns of collective motion found in other groups of animals, including wildebeests, fish, and ants.

Whirring, thrumming waves and swirls. Pulsing, whooshing twists and twirls. The hypnotizing movements of a gathering of birds at dusk—a reminder of nature’s eternal rhythms.

ICYMI Nature News

Rare Maui Birds Rescued
Out of the heartbreaking tragedy of the Maui wildfires comes a story of nature-sparing heroism. The staff of the Maui Bird Conservation Center, home to some of the world’s rarest birds, rushed in to save the critically endangered animals from the rapidly advancing flames. You can read about the avian heroes here and help support Maui Forest birds here.

Meet the Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star
The multi-limbed beasty discovered in the depths of the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean might look like it’s straight out of Alien central casting, but it’s a brand-new Earthly species. Hello there!

Fruit Flies Just Want to Have Fun
Apparently, fruit flies like playing as much as any vertebrate. Scientists have discovered that given the opportunity to go round and round on a simulated carousal, the insects jump at the chance. Whee!

The Creatures Below Your Feet
Did you know that more than half of the Earth’s species live in the soil below your feet? That’s right—ninety percent of fungi, 80% of plants, and 50% of bacteria. Tread carefully out there!

This Kākāpō’s a Trier
If you’re in need of a bit of inspiration in the keep-on-keeping-on department, Steve the kākāpō has some thoughts to share on living your dreams. Because for New Zealand’s earthbound owl parrot, flying is believing.

Little Brown Bat: America’s Next Top Model?
Should a furry little night flyer be America’s Next Top Model? We think it’s about time. You can watch the little brown bat’s audition tape here.

And Bless the Rains Down in Africa
Since this week’s climate news has been, yeah, well, not okay—at all, we’re going to leave you with 18,000 strangers singing a Toto song because that might help you feel a little better between headlines. Hear it here.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
As always, thanks to our lovely readers, we’ve planted another batch of carbon-capturing trees with our pals at Tree-Nation to help give people and the planet a little more breathing space. From April 2022 through July 2023, the trees that we’ve planted across 13 projects in 12 countries bring our carbon capture to 3980 tons of CO2. That’s the equivalent of 4,458,726 pounds of coal burned, 10,204,103 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle, and 447,897 gallons of gasoline consumed.

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Lisa S. French August 19, 2023

Brainy Jays Cater to their Best Birds

1.5-minute read

How much do you imagine birds know about what their feathered friends might be thinking? Are they capable of putting themselves in another bird’s shoes—if birds wore shoes—or do they simply rely on instinct to navigate intra-avian interactions?

The ability to comprehend that another’s thoughts and desires may differ from our own was long believed to be a uniquely human cognitive trait. Recent research has revealed that predicting and interpreting the beliefs and intentions of others is a skill that we share with some members of the crow family. Despite having a distinctly different brain structure, these brainy birds are capable of perspective-taking, the complex thinking and behavioral flexibility that enables them to ignore their own preferences and predict and respond to the preferences of their mates.

A University of Cambridge study revealed that the courting male Eurasian jay could perceive that the way to his best bird’s heart was through her stomach. Given a choice between two types of favorite worms to feed his mate, and regardless of which wriggly delicacy he wanted, the insightful jay chose to feed her the type of worm she had not already eaten. Because both humans and animals would prefer not to eat the same food for every meal, researchers concluded that the male jays paid attention to what their mates ate and predicted that offering her food she had not grown tired of would be more likely to please her. It seems, for Eurasian jays, to love a bird is to cater to her worm wishes—food for thought.

ICYMI Nature News

Dolphins Return to Da Bronx
Delighted New Yorkers welcomed the return of dolphins to the Bronx River this week thanks to a decades-long cleanup effort to restore the aquatic habitat. Happy to have you back, finned fellows!

A Vaccine for Endangered Bees
Help is on the way for honeybees plagued by a deadly bacterial disease. The first bee vaccine developed to save hives has been approved in the United States. Roll up those teeny-tiny sleeves!

Turtle Moms Talk to Their Eggs
Researchers have discovered that giant South American river turtles chat to their eggs before they hatch. Not only that, but the pre-hatched turtles also chirp together to coordinate the big breakout. Ready, set, go!

These Frogs Hide their Blood to Go Stealth
Scientists in the Amazon have learned that tropical glass frogs can divert their blood to their livers to make themselves invisible. Ooh, amphibian party trick!

Keeping It Cool with Snot Bubbles
According to a study at Curtin University, echidnas, prickly egg-laying mammals native to Australia, cope with high temperatures by blowing snot bubbles to keep their noses wet. Wait, doesn’t everyone?

Time to Plan Your Pollinator Patch
To reach their goal of 25,000 new pollinator gardens across the U.S. in 2023, Save our Monarchs is inviting every school, scout troop, and 4-H club across the U.S. to pitch in and plant to help save the endangered butterflies. Find out how to get your free seeds here.

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Lisa S. French January 27, 2023

A Big Win for a Little Bird

2-minute read

Wren you’ve got it, you’ve got it!

The pīwauwau rock wren, the little songbird with the really big feet, has hopped and bopped past its competitors to be crowned 2022 New Zealand Bird of the Year. And what makes the diminutive mountain dweller a winner? For starters, the feathered rock climber is New Zealand’s only true alpine bird, spending its entire life flitting around the unforgiving, rugged terrain of the island country’s mountain regions. Despite weighing less than a double-A battery and lacking an insulating layer of down, the rock wren manages to endure months of bitter cold temperatures that can drop below -10℃ at elevations as high as 3,000 meters.

You might think that an ancient bird species robust enough to survive 62 million years in such a harsh environment could handle just about anything nature throws its way, but the rock wren is in serious trouble. Unfortunately, human-introduced predators have pushed the intrepid avian mountaineers to the brink of extinction.

Even though our Bird of the Year pick, the rockhopper penguin, failed to capture the crown, we’re happy to congratulate this little endangered underbird on its much-deserved big win. With 49% of bird species globally in decline, drawing attention to the plight of rare and at-risk fliers like the New Zealand rock wren can promote conservation strategies that ensure they stick around to prettify the planet for another few million years.

You can find out more about the rock wren and other amazing New Zealand bird species from Forest & Bird. And if you’d like to offer your support to all of the winged wonders of our world, Birdlife International has lots of ways you can lend a hand. Faced with the triple threats of climate change, habitat loss, and invasive species, our beloved birds might just survive with a little help and TLC from their fwrens.

ICYMI Nature News

Prescription Bird Benefits
We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again, being around birds is good for you. In case you need another great reason to spend time in nature with the feathered songsters, researchers at King’s College have concluded that seeing and hearing birds improves overall mental well-being. So, if you’ve got a stubborn case of the blues, you may benefit from a daily dose of prescribed birdsong.

Bees Just Want to Have Fun
Apparently, all work and no play makes for very dull pollinators. We knew the brainy, little insects were hard workers, but according to scientists at Queen Mary University, bees are also fun seekers that like to play with toys given the opportunity. Note to self: add teeny-tiny toy chest to garden.

Mapping Pachyderm Facial Feels
Have you ever wondered how elephants maintain such effortless control of their trunks? According to Science Advances, it’s because they have tens of thousands of nerve cells in the grape-sized brain region that controls their facial muscles—63,000 cells for African elephants and 54,000 for Asians. We humans, by comparison, have only 8-9000 nerve cells in our facial control center. Now you know why you can’t pull out tree trunks with your nose.

Nose-Picking Primates
It’s long been accepted that Mother Nature provides each unique species on the planet with the essential tools and abilities needed to survive. In the case of the Madagascar aye-aye, it seems the primate needs to pick its nose, so is equipped with an 8 cm extra-long middle finger to do the job. Researchers believe that the nose-picking habit (hobby?), also common in other primates, is likely a form of self-cleaning. Tissue, little fellow?

FWP Carbon Capture Report
We’ve got another month of tree planting and carbon capture updates to report. But before we get to the number crunching, we’d like to provide a bit of info about why we plant where we plant.

Almost every region on Earth can get a boost from tree planting, but picking spots that provide the optimal social, biodiversity, and environmental benefits is critical to our mission. Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, we plant the majority of our trees in the tropical zone, where they receive the most sunlight to expedite growth and CO2 capture.

Tropical regions also host about 85% of all terrestrial species. Planting trees in the tropics helps combat deforestation and habitat loss that threaten many species with extinction. The Tree-Nation platform also enables us to plant drought-resistant crop trees that support communities most at risk from famine and malnutrition. Our goal is to plant the right trees in the right places for the greatest all-around benefit.

From April through October, the trees we’ve planted across 11 projects bring our carbon capture total to 2020 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 2,235,456 pounds of coal burned, 227,350 gallons of gasoline consumed, or 5,015,197 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.

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Lisa S. French November 1, 2022

City Birds Pump Up the Volume

2-minute read

Can you hear me now?

The lilting birdsong that adds beauty to the soundscape of our planet plays an essential role in avian social interaction, mate attraction, and territory protection. But for feathered songsters nesting in urban areas, maintaining bird-to-bird communications above the din of a bustling city is no small tweet. Urban dwellers of all kinds are regularly exposed to the stress of noise levels above 85 decibels (equivalent to a perpetually running food blender) compared to the 30-40 decibels of a wilderness area. So how do city birds make themselves heard over the honking? They’ve learned to pump up the volume.

According to researchers at Ohio State and the University of California at Davis, birds adapting to survive in cities may adjust the volume, pitch, or timing of their chirps, whistles, and warbles to break through the background noise. Sparrows, northern cardinals, American robins, and red-winged blackbirds are some of the species that can modify their songs to improve vocal transmission.

Because belting out birdsong takes more energy, larger birds have a greater capacity to sing over street racket. Some of the clever critters have also adjusted the timing of their dawn chorus so that it starts ahead of rush hour. Not only do early birds catch the worm, but they also know to trill before traffic starts.

With bird populations down by 2.9 billion across North America since 1970, understanding how and if our avian friends can adapt to environmental change and continued habitat loss is critical to their conservation. Perhaps the meaning of those early morning urban tweet storms roughly translated is “C’mon, people, work with us. We’re trying to sing out here!” If you’d like to find out how to keep the birdsong going, the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have lots of innovative ways to help.

ICYMI Nature News

Even More Bird Beauty
The winning photos of the Bird Photographers of the Year for 2022 have been announced, and they are stunning. Have a look! And if you’ve been following along with the Audubon Birdsong Project, Volume IV is now available for your listening pleasure.

Endangered Migration
Like other winged species, monarch butterflies are struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world. The WWF has released a magical new short film on the threats to monarch migration. You can watch here.

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Land shark.
According to researchers at the University of Florida, a small species of carpet shark found in the South Pacific is adapting to warming seas by learning to fin-walk on land. Time to break out the shin guards.

Shake, Shake, Rattle, and Glow
Meet the Elvis worms. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have discovered four new species of deep-sea worms whose shimmery scales rival the King’s sequined jumpsuits. Iridescent worms? We’re all shook up!

FWP Carbon Capture Report
As scientists continue to discover more ways that trees and forests add to our happiness, we’re glad to have the opportunity to contribute to those positive vibes thanks to our planting pals at Tree-Nation. Since April 2022, the trees we’ve planted across eleven projects bring our carbon capture to 1,562 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 3,878,347 miles driven by a gasoline-powered passenger vehicle, 190,061,769 smartphones charged, or 1,728,720 pounds of coal burned.

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Lisa S. French September 10, 2022

A shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) stork standing surrounded by plants and waiting

Say Hello to the Shoebill Stork—If You Dare

2-minute read

If you happened upon a shoebill stork in your travels, your first thought after you stopped shaking in your wading boots would most likely be, “Whoa, that is one super-sized, scarily pre-historic looking bird… dino-bird… bird-o-saur…” Standing five feet tall with a saucer-eyed, do-you-see-how-I-see-you stare and a bone-crusher of a hooked bill, this fearsome swamp dweller is not an escapee from Jurassic Park but a distinctive African wading bird considered one of the most extraordinary feathered creatures on Earth. Let’s dig in to find out what makes the shoebill stork stand out in a flock:

What’s in a Name?
Dubbed Balaeniceps rex, “King Whalehead” or whale-headed stork by British ornithologist John Gould in 1851, the bird was known as abu markub, “father of the shoe” by the Arab people, and schuhschnabel or “shoebill” by the Germans. With a bill shaped like a shoe large enough to hold a human foot, shoebill became the favored moniker. But what kind of shoe? Sneaker? Nope. Stiletto? No. Sandal? Unh-uh. The consensus is that this wading bird’s bill looks like a Dutch clog. Originally grouped with storks, herons, and ibis, scientists have concluded that the shoebill is more closely related to pelicans.

Creature Features
In addition to a powerful 12-inch bill with a piercing nail-like hook on the end, the shoebill has extra-long toes for swamp-stomping and a remarkable eight-foot wingspan.

The Swamp It Calls Home
Found only in the freshwater wetlands of eastern central tropical Africa, the shoebill occupies some of the most inaccessible habitats in the world. The tall, leggy water bird prefers swamps and marshes with lots of reeds and floating vegetation, where it constructs raft-sized nests that can measure up to eight feet across—which, as an aside, is only slightly smaller than a Manhattan studio. Shoebills lay one to three eggs, and it takes about five months for a baby shoebill to mature, leave the nest and stand on its own big bird feet.

Hobbies and Interests
Despite its menacing appearance, the shoebill is no avian warrior. The low-energy, solitary bird spends about 85% of its time standing, preening, and sitting on platforms of vegetation. The sluggish species stands motionless for hours, waiting for a tasty meal to swim by and then collapses on its prey hooked-bill first in a frenzy of wing-flapping. Although the shoebill is capable of flying long distances, it’s not migratory, spends only 0.9% of its time in the air, and only occasionally perches in trees.

Favorite Foods
Most partial to carp and lungfish, the patient fisher-bird is also keen on turtles, water snakes, lizards, and baby crocodiles—also known as the wetlands buffet.

Communication Style
You won’t hear energetic chitter-chattering or soul-stirring swamp songs from the shoebill. The rat-a-tat-tat sound of machine-gun fire it produces is known as bill clattering, and it’s used to both delight lady birds and deter predators. When not on high alert for love or danger, the otherwise quiet bird may offer a gentle nod in greeting. And if you see a shoebill shake its head from side to side, it’s not a judgy sign of disapproval but an attempt to dislodge weedy debris or leftover lungfish.

Shoebill Stressors
Like so many amazing animal species globally, shoebill populations across Africa are declining. Habitat loss, climate change, and illegal capture for the bird trade are taking their toll on the avian wonders. The IUCN estimates that only 3,300 to 5,300 shoebills are left in the wild. As our home planet continues to undergo rapid environmental change, vulnerable animals like the shoebill need all the help they can get to survive. If you’d like to join an international community of people working to create a better world for wondrous wildlife like the shoebill, head on over to Birdlife.org—nature needs more followers!

ICYMI Nature News

Styrofoam Eating Superworms
Move over plastic-eating bacterium, scientists from the University of Queensland have discovered that the larvae of the darkling beetle can survive solely on Styrofoam. Apparently, the little wrigglers prefer a light meal. By all means, dig in!

Turtle-y Not Extinct
Princeton scientists have announced big news for a big tortoise. The Galápagos “fantastic giant tortoise” believed to be extinct for the past 100 years is thankfully still with us. Researchers have located a fifty-year-old female tortoise, which they’ve named Fernanda, and transported her to a rescue and breeding facility for safekeeping. After a half century of keeping herself to herself, we’re glad Fernanda finally came out of her shell.

Polar Bear Work Around
Polar bears in Greenland have come up with a new hunting strategy to compensate for climate change-induced loss of sea ice. It seems these arctic dwellers are smarter than the average bear—although the average bear is smarter than you thought.

You Could Even Say It Glows
Photographer Callie Chee has captured sparkling images of nature’s night lights in a gallery series on bioluminescent lifeforms. Eerily beautiful!

“If Not Now, Then When?”
And the winner of the 2022 Environmental Music Prize is Australian rock artists King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for their call-to-action track If Not Now, Then When? When indeed.

That’s all for now Earthlings. Happy summer solstice. Have a super week!

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Lisa S. French June 20, 2022

Blue Jays on snow in the winter wilderness

Heads Up, Bird People

1.5-minute read

It’s almost here—the 25th annual Great Backyard Bird Count! Wherever you are on the planet, from February 18th through the 21st, the GBBC is your chance to get out and about and let the world know how many of our feathered friends can be found on your patch.

If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare this weekend, you’ll find everything you need to add to the global critter count, courtesy of Audubon, The Cornell Ornithology Lab, Birds Canada, and eBird:

Free Webinar: On Wednesday 16th at 2 pm EST, avian aficionados of all ages and experience levels can get pro tips on identifying creature features and how to do an official count, bird by bird.

How to Participate: You can download a printable checklist to find out who’s who in your area, access the Merlin ID app that covers bird species on seven continents in 12 languages, and find tools to upload your tally to eBird via your mobile or desktop.

Global Live Map: You’ll be able to keep tabs on sightings around the world as birdwatchers upload their observation lists. If you get bird envy when the Southern Hemisphere goes online, we can relate. It’s a bird-a-palooza down there.

In case you need more of an incentive to bird watch your way out of the winter gloom, according to a new study, in addition to being important pollinators, the winged songsters improve our well-being—and the more birds in our environment, the better we feel. So, grab your field glasses, head on out, and give birds and your mood a boost! In anticipation of endorphin elevation, let’s do a practice count together—bird, bird—bird, bird, bird. Don’t you feel better already!

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Lisa S. French February 15, 2022

NYC is for the Birds

1.5-minute read

What if New York City, the most densely populated urban area in the United States, could be transformed into a green oasis that’s also a haven for winged wildlife? Can we make more room for nature, so the city is less concrete and more jungle? You bet—think vertical!

There are roughly 36,700 acres of handily sun-facing rooftops in NYC—equivalent to 27,803 football fields or 44 Central Parks. That’s a whole lot of valuable space to create healthy, productive habitat for plants, pollinators, and feathered friends—sky meadows teeming with life—wildflowers, songbirds, butterflies, bees. Greening rooftops would not only make the city a force for nature restoration but would help to preserve wildlife in non-urban areas as well. Connecting fragments of habitat would provide migrating and breeding birds with access to life-sustaining vegetation and food resources where and when they’re needed most.

Researchers from Fordham University investigating the potential for NYC green roofs to attract semi-urban and non-urban birds compared avian visitors to green and conventional roofs in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx during spring migration and summer breeding seasons. They found that birds that typically avoid the Big Apple will make an exception for green roofs that provide the right combination of plants and insects for foraging.

With rapid urbanization and loss of green space, most migratory birds will encounter cityscapes in their travels. Providing rooftop recharging stations planted with bird and insect-friendly vegetation will help increase their odds of survival in a warming world. And green roofs aren’t just for the birds—they also benefit people by cleaning and cooling the air, decreasing noise, and reducing storm runoff. Plus, they’re more lovely to look at. Now that’s a sweet city!

You can check out some inspiring examples of NYC green roofs here and global living architecture projects here. And if you’d like to learn more about what it takes to turn regular old urban rooftops into beautiful life-sustaining habitats, watch this video from NYC Audubon.

Whether you’re urban or rural or somewhere in-between, if you’ve been topping up the winter chow to help out hungry local birds, you can get the inside scoop on the pecking order at the feeder and who comes out on top from Audubon. Here in Manhattan, it’s the doves—always the doves. Update: Be sure to have a look at Carla Rhodes’ wonderful snaps of New York birds getting their fair share—doves on cleanup crew.

Speaking of local birds, congratulations to the 2021 MLS Cup Champions—the New York City FC, aka the Pigeons. Well done and welcome back to your urban habitat!

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Lisa S. French December 14, 2021