The Audubon Society of Northern Virginia has created a series of fact sheets for Birds to Help in the DC area. The fact sheets are based on the National Audubon Society Birds to Help fact sheets, but include additional local information. Species include Cooper's Hawk, Pileated Woodpecker, Tree Swallow, and Carolina Wren (shown below).
In addition to bird fact sheets, they also have information sheets on how to help other animals, including Eastern Box Turtles, frogs, snakes, and Monarch Butterflies.
Photo: Nancy Prince
Bridget Butler has spent the past 16 years teaching people to appreciate and conserve nature and how to help birds in New England. She has
worked for New Hampshire Audubon, Massachusetts Audubon,
Stone Environmental Schools of
New England, Audubon Vermont, and the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine. She is true-blue Audubon. One time she scraped her knee and instead of blood, little blue Audubon egrets flew out!
As the Conservation Education Director for Audubon Vermont, Bridget helped develop a Forest Bird Initiative, which engages rural landowners in protecting and managing their forests for songbirds, including a Birder's Dozen list of suggested Birds to Help. In addition to conducting landowner workshops, Bridget helped put together fact sheets on the Birder's Dozen, as well as a two page guide to Bird Friendly Forest Management Practices. You can listen to a podcast of Bridget discussing the Forest Bird Initiative on At the Crossroads. A story about some landowners participating in this project is online at Audubon Magazine.
While at Audubon Vermont, Bridget was also a pioneer in bird-related podcasting. Past editions of her BEEKS--A Birding Geek's Radio Delight on Vermont Public Radio are available as podcasts here. You don't have to listen very long to appreciate her enthusiasm and love for birds and people--a winning combination for anyone trying to get others involved in helping birds.
During the Summer of 2008, Bridget left Audubon Vermont to serve as the program director at the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine. At the end of the camp season, Bridget returned to Vermont, where she has set up her own Bird Diva blog and is continuing her enthusiastic work on behalf of birds. We'll be hearing much more from Bridget in the future!
The Daily Mail online today reported on research showing that magpies can recognize themselves in the mirror--something that very few other animals are thought to be able to do. As members of the crow family, magpies are widely regarded as very intelligent. Perhaps even too intelligent according to their occasionally annoyed human neighbors.
Folks living with magpies in the Western United States and southern Canada sometimes complain that the birds steal dog food, raid fruit crops, or wary livestock. In reality, magpies are important predators of grasshoppers and other insect pests, as well as scavengers that help clean up our farms, ranches, and country homes. They generally do well around human habitations, with some research showing that they are actually more abundant near rural homes and farms than in less settled areas (see this NRCS report).
For all their environmental benefits, and just because they are neat intelligent birds, there are many reasons not to kill them if they are causing a problem. For non-lethal ways to deal with magpies and other occasionally problematic wild animals, see the resources linked on Audubon's Nuisance Wildlife page.
Photo: USFWS
August 10-16 was the annual Audubon Chapter Leadership Workshop. For the past four years, Audubon chapter leaders and National Audubon Society staff have gathered at the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine for a week of birding, feasting, and bird conservation workshops on protecting Important Bird Areas, Conservation Policy, Environmental Education, and Backyard and Neighborhood Bird Conservation.
This year, during the Audubon At Home workshop, two dozen chapter leaders created their own local Audubon At Home programs based on Healthy Yard principles and Birds to Help. Among other things, they created plans for a Purple Martin Festival, an American Kestrel nestbox program, and a Brown Thrasher habitat project in Georgia (were the thrasher is their state bird).
In addition to hanging out with National Audubon experts, chapter leaders enjoy plenty of time to explore the beauties of this forested Maine island, search for tidal pool creatures (highlights this year were a pipefish netted in neck-deep water and a school of herring seined from the surf) and a trip out to see the Atlantic Puffins restored to Eastern Egg Rock by Audubon scientist Stephen Kress.
The Audubon Chapter Leadership Workshop is a great way to learn how to make your own communities better for birds and people. For more info on past leadership workshops, check out the Birdchaser blog for posts on the workshops in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.
We all know how important water is for wildlife. Sometimes water attracts even the most wary birds. Here's a young Harris's Hawk coming to water put out on a backyard patio in Tucson, AZ. Audubon considers the Harris's Hawk to be a Vulnerable Common Bird--one that is still fairly common but has experienced significant declines or lives within a small range. Harris's Hawk numbers have declined 57 percent over the past 40 years. More on birds and water online here.
Photo: Susan Ketterlinus
Once you start feeding birds or otherwise making your yard more attractive for wildlife, almost anything could show up. Here's a family of Sandhill Cranes at a feeder in St. Cloud, Florida. While we often think of Sandhill Cranes as birds of wild prairies, meadows, or wetlands, they are fairly regular yard birds in Florida.
While deliberately attempting to feed Sandhill Cranes in your yard is not a good idea, if you do have them wandering around your neighborhood, it would be especially important to avoid using lawn pesticides or fertilizer pellets that might harm the birds. For more information on how to reduce your use of lawn pesticides, see the Audubon At Home resources available online.
Sometimes these birds fall victim to other suburban perils. After several cranes were killed by cars near a middle school in the Tampa area, students rallied to get a wildlife crossing sign installed to slow down traffic (see news story here).
To get a sense of what folks in Florida are dealing with, take a look at these videos on YouTube (one, two, three, four). And while hand-feeding Sandhill Cranes may look fun and harmless, people need to remember that these are large wild birds that can easily inflict damage with their large and sharp beaks. Like all wild animals, they should be given their due space.
Photo: Frank & Peggy Malloy
We all know that most songbirds love birdbaths. They really like water they can splash in, and may be more attracted to water that is dripping or splashing. The simplest way to create a water drip, is to make one out of an old two liter soda bottle (see instructions here).
Remember to keep the water clean. Don't let mosquitos breed in your birdbath. Mosquitoes can transmit West Nile Virus to birds and humans. In fact, recent research has shown that American Robins are a common host of the West Nile Virus. By all means attract as many birds as you can to your yard, but make sure your birdbath doesn't become a reservoir for mosquitoes and the viruses they can carry. For more information see Audubon's Birds and West Nile Virus pages.
Photo: Louise E. Hunt
Spotted Towhees are fairly common across much of the Western United States, but they need shrubby areas to thrive. Since nice patches of shrubs are often hard to find in suburban neighborhoods, the Spotted Towhee is a Suburban Bird to Help--one that needs a little extra help to do well in suburban areas. For more info on how to help this large, ground-feeding sparrow, see Audubon's How to Help Spotted Towhees fact sheet. For information on native shrubs to plant in your area, see the native plant databases at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Photo: Katy Shupe
Back in 1973, Audubon biologist Stephen Kress came up with a plan to bring Atlantic Puffins back to islands off the coast of Maine where they had disappeared decades earlier. After years of work, Project Puffin was a success and now there are hundreds of pairs of puffins nesting on offshore islands thanks to the work of Kress and his team.
No matter what you do, you probably won't get a puffin in your birdbath, but you can follow the lead of Project Puffin and bring more birds back to your yard and neighborhood. Are there birds that used to be there that have now disappeared? How many birds can you bring back by providing the food and shelter and nesting sites that they need? For more ideas on birds to help in your neighborhood--be it a heavily developed urban area, suburban subdivision, or more rural landscape, check out Audubon's Birds to Help page.
Back in 1987 Audubon bird conservationist Jesse Grantham was driving around Rockport, Texas with some friends when they noticed over 200 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds coming to some hummingbird feeders. Jesse turned to his friends and said:
"Boy, you know. That's an absolutely amazing
thing to see. That’s a natural history phenomena taking place, you can’t
see anything like that on the Discovery Channel on TV and here it is,
live and up front and right in your face. What an experience for people
to be able to witness this kind of thing going on...We ought
to create some kind of an event out of this, using the hummingbird as—as
a vehicle, as a leverage to—to bring awareness to that bird and—and the
habitat needs of that bird."
The next summer they went to the Chamber of Commerce, got a little bit of money to get started, and held their first Hummer Bird Celebration in September 1988. Its been going strong ever since, with thousands of people coming each year to celebrate the birds. For more information on the history of the festival, see the transcript or video of an interview with Jesse Grantham on the Texas Legacy Project website (There is a lot here about Jesse's involvement with bird conservation and Audubon At Home themes including invasive species; the part about the festival starts at 00:37:28).
Later, when Jesse took a position in Mississippi, he started a similar festival at the Strawberry Plains Audubon Center in Holly Springs. The first year they had about 300 people show up. A couple years later, when Madge Lindsay invited Bob Sargent to come and band hummingbirds at the festival, the crowds started really showing up. Last year, over 8,000 people came out to see the birds. For detatils on the upcoming 2008 festival, see the Audubon Mississippi website.
Since then, festivals have sprung up elsewhere across the country (see listings here). As Jesse Grantham notes, hummingbirds are one of the top three most charismatic birds in North America. If you live where hummingbirds congregate, consider having your own festival. For more information on how to help hummingbirds, see fact sheets on Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Anna's Hummingbirds, and Black-chinned Hummingbirds on our Birds to Help website
Audubon Mississippi's Harry the Hummingbird mascot photo by Bruce Reid.
This time each year, thousands of Purple Martins gather at large communal roost sites across eastern North America as they migrate south. Many of these roost sites are in urban areas, and some roosts contain over 100,000 birds. It is quite a spectacle to see the birds swarm to the roost site at dusk, and depart at dawn. You can watch a video of birds swirling around one such roost at the Highland Mall in Austin, TX here, and see more photos here.
If there is a roost in your community, you can help protect it by registering it with the Purple Martin Conservation Society's Project Martin Roost. If your roost is already registered, it is still important to report how many birds are using the roost so researchers can track the size of the roosts from year to year. For more information visit the Project Martin Roost website.
In some areas, birds at roosts are killed in large numbers by passing cars. At other roosts, the birds may be considered a nuisance by property managers. Several groups around the country work to protect local roosts. If you have a local roost that needs additional protection, you can see what others have done to help out by visiting some of the following websites:
Coastal Carolina Purple Martin Society (NC)
Lake Pontchartrain Causeway (LA)
Lunch Island (SC)
Roanoake Island Purple Martin Festival (VA)
Perhaps the best thing you can do to protect martin roosts is to promote martin viewing as a natural spectacle. When the management of a farmers market in Richmond, Virginia wanted to cut down trees where martins were roosting, the Richmond Audubon Society and others mobilized to change public perception and celebrate the birds. Last week, the farmer's market and the local neighborhood association hosted a "Gone to the Birds" Festival, complete with free raspberry sherbert and door prizes to entertain local martin fans.
Photo of Lewisville, TX martin roost courtesy of Kenny Crawford.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service, a longtime supporter of Audubon At Home, has a collection of wildlife habitat management leaflets produced in collaboration with the Wildlife Habitat Council (of which Audubon is a member).
Many of these are geared towards species and habitats found in more rural or agricultural areas (such as Long-billed Curlew and Mountain Plover), but many are useful in a suburban context as well. The leaflets are usually 12 or more pages of detailed information on topics including how to help:
American Kestrels
Bats
Butterflies
Eastern Bluebirds
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds
Wood Ducks
There is also a great 31 page guide to artificial nesting structures. A complete list of the 47 leaflets available for downloading is on the NRCS Agricultural Wildlife Conservation Center website.
American Kestrel photo: Larry Umthun
As reported recently in the OC Register and High Country News, in response to fires in coastal California which have destroyed thousands of acres of Cactus Wren habitat, David Olson and colleagues at the Irvine Ranch Conservancy are installing artificial cactus made from PVC piping and metal spikes as potential nesting sites for the birds.
The first fake cholla were installed a couple weeks ago, and several more are going up shortly. Over the next three to six months, biologists will check the structures to see if the wrens build nests on them. Since each pair of wrens may build several nests in their territory, they'll have to monitor any nests to see if the birds actually lay eggs in them.
If the wrens do adopt these artificial nesting sites, more will be installed in the area. The first installations were in or adjacent to active wren territories. If they work, future artificial nest sites may be placed in areas where wrens have disappeared, or in areas that can link occupied wren habitats.
As seen in these photos, the artificial cholla nesting sites are nine feet tall, made from painted PVC pipe and wire, mounted on steel rebar with baffles on each leg to protect the nest site from climbing predators. A second experimental design (shown being installed here at left) has more wire and looks less like a cactus to human eyes. Only time will tell if either of these may be used or preferred by nesting wrens.
While artificial nest sites may not be an ideal permanent solution for helping Cactus Wrens, this innovative approach is a great example of trying to see just how far we can help these birds in an area where human-caused fires and habitat loss due to urbanization make it necessary for us to take extra experimental steps.
For more information on this project, contact David Olson at the Irvine Ranch Conservancy.
Cactus Wren photo: Charles Farmer Other photos courtesy Irvine Ranch Conservancy.
A number of Audubon chapters conduct annual wildlife garden tours. One of the longest-running is Tulsa Audubon's Wildlife Habitat Garden Tour and Plant Sale, now in its 15th year. You can see a map of this year's route, along with photos of some gardens on their website.
A few other Audubon chapters and organizations with web pages highlighting their garden tours include:
Audubon Society of Northern Virginia (see news story here)
Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania (see news story here)
Fort Collins Audubon Society (see news stories here and here)
For info on putting together a similar event in your area, see How to Organize a Garden Tour for Charity and additional guidelines from Canadian Gardening Online.
Barred Owls are one of Audubon's potential Birds to Help in wooded rural areas, but they may also nest in heavily wooded suburban areas. Professor Rob Bierregaard and his students at UNCC have been studying radio-tagged Barred Owls living in suburban Charlotte, North Carolina since 2001. You can read about their work on their Ecology of Barred Owls pages. These pages include maps of dispersing young owl movements across the suburbs (the farthest recorded so far moved 11 miles) and other interesting observations. Unfortunately, they are finding that many suburban owls they track end up being hit by cars. Ongoing studies will hopefully reveal how significant this problem is, and how safe suburban neighborhoods are for owls compared to more rural forested areas.
Among the resources on these pages are detailed instructions for building and installing easy to build (but heavy!) Barred Owl nest boxes.
For more information about what Barred Owls need and what you can do for them, check out Audubon's How to Help Barred Owls factsheet.
(Photo: Nicolle Balders-Kaune)
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