Celebrate Urban Birds News
July/August 2008
20,000 signups, 70,000 kits, 3,000 organizations
We're just about to reach our 20,000th signup! This includes individuals,
families, and more than 3,000 organizations that have helped us distribute
nearly 70,000 kits. More than 78% of the organizations we are working with reach
underrepresented participants. Thanks to you, we are taking birds and
conservation to the most unlikely places. Thanks to your participation, tens of
thousands of people are learning about birds, creating more green spaces for
birds, and contributing to science. Thank you!
*****************************************************************************
Celebrating Little Green Places
We created a new poster about the "Little Green Places" you can plant for
birds. One side shows a cityscape in miniature, illustrating lots of the little
green places that support and attract birds. If you look carefully you'll find
illustrations of participants and Cornell Lab of Ornithology staff. To create
the poster, Susan Spear, our very own graphic designer took pictures of people,
plants, and landscapes and converted them into graphics for the poster. The back
of the poster lists bird-friendly plants you can put in containers, next to your
stoop, or maybe on your rooftop, and gives you ideas for creative uses for these
plants. (Plant a sunflower play house or make echinacea tea!) You will soon
be able to order the Celebrate Little Green Places for Birds poster for $5.00 or
download it for free as a PDF from the Celebrate Urban Birds web site. Check out
pictures of the very cool new bird-friendly garden planted by kids at
Pine Hills Elementary in Albany, New York. We have some new pages about
urban gardening for birds on our web site, and new information is going up
all the time. Share your success stories with us!
*****************************************************************************
Little Green Places photo/video/art contest
Enter our second contest by emailing your photo, drawing, or video of a
Little Green Space that's good for birds. An ivy-covered wall, flowers next to
the stoop, a windowbox, a container garden on a rooftop or balcony, your school
garden--have you noticed a spot that birds like because it provides shelter,
food, or water? We'll send every entry a copy of the new poster! There will be
other great prizes, including a $100 gift certificate from
Johnny's Selected Seeds, which is a
great place to order interesting seeds for the new container garden you'll be
inspired to plant after you receive your new poster! Information about the
Little Green Places contest can be found on our web site.
Email your entry to us. In order to receive your poster and enter the contest
you must:
- Write "Little Green Places Contest" in the subject line.
- Include your name and mailing address in the email.
- Tell us where your Little Green Place is.
- Tell us why it's a good Little Green Place for birds.
- Send us your entry before October 15, 2008.
*****************************************************************************
Beautiful Birds in Urban Places
Marian Mendez was the winner of our first photo contest,
Beautiful Birds in Urban Places. First prize was a beautiful camera from
Leica Camera of North America (
http://us.leica-camera.com/home/). Marian takes wonderful bird pictures
without ever leaving her back yard in suburban Miami, Florida! She shares some
of her simple and practical photo tips in one of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
publications,
Birdscope , in an article called Fun with Backyard Photography.(will be
on-line soon) She takes the time to observe the behavior of the birds around
her, and is very inspired by their beauty and activity. Browse the
collections of her photographs on our website to inspire your
kids/participants to talk about about bird
silhouettes ,
flight and feathers ,
attitude
,
posture , and
behavior . Her bird pictures have personality!
*****************************************************************************
On Meadowview Street and other great books
We found a treasure of a book, written by Henry Cole, called On
Meadowview Street, published in 2007 by GreenWillow books of HarperCollins.
A little girl asks her dad to mow around a little flower blooming in their lawn
and, well, did you ever wonder what would happen if you gave up your lawn and
created bird-friendly habitat instead? This is a whimsical look at how a
neighborhood can be transformed, but the steps are very practical and can be
accomplished by any family--notice what plants attract birds, butterflies, and
other creatures, reduce lawn area in favor or more varied plantings, put up
shelter and nest boxes for birds, make water available. In a few pages you can
see how Meadowview Street becomes a real meadow! Henry Cole has a great web
site, www.henrycole.net, and has written
and illustrated many fabulous books. Take a look at I took a Walk and
On the Way to the Beach for more beautiful birds and bird habitat
illustrations. For more info on other books we like visit
Recommended Books , and our page of recommended books for
libraries.
*****************************************************************************
Is that a Mourning Dove?
Have you noticed a bird that looks just like a Mourning Dove but not quite?
Could
Eurasian Collared-Doves be spreading to your city? Eurasian Collared-Doves
were introduced into the Bahamas in the 1970s. In the 1980s, they spread,
without human assistance, to Florida and have expanded across the U.S. and much
of North America. The species made a similar expansion across Europe in the
1900s. Several of our focal species moved in to North America in the same
fashion, and are now widespread and successful. People tend to think they were
always here:
House Sparrow ,
Rock Pigeon , and
European Starling .
Do doves all seem the same to you? Learn more about doves that may live near you
and get tips on how to identify them:
Tricky Doves.
*****************************************************************************
Thank you HUMM
Thanks to a generous donation from Gardner's Wildlife & Gardening, winners
of the 2008 Celebrate Urban Birds mini-grant awards have received a HUMM
hummingbird feeding system!
The HUMM uses a recyclable soda pop bottle as the reservoir for the sugar
solution the hummingbirds love, so it's perfect for someone who doesn't like
cleaning their feeder every few days. Just recycle the bottle in use and
substitute a new one. The creators of the HUMM would love to receive hummingbird
reports and photos from anyone using their feeder, especially in urban areas.
Learn about
the HUMM on our web site or at
www.the-humm.com
*****************************************************************************
Inspiration through the arts
Pedro Fernandes is an illustrator working at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
We are lucky to have him here and often see him drawing and sketching birds by
the windows of our lunch room. It's easy to be inspired by him. Learn how he is
creating a new poster of nesting birds for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's
NestWatch citizen-science project. His illustrations are peppered throughout
the Celebrate Urban Birds site.
Watch the video and maybe you'll be inspired to do your own bird sketches!
*****************************************************************************
Urban Bird Sounds Project - You can make a podcast too!
The
Urban Bird Sounds Project is led by students from Codman Academy Charter
Public School in Boston and is a model for how to integrate technology with
nature. Both kids and adults will be inspired! Young people created podcasts
about the songs and calls of city birds. The podcasts and CDs by Codman students
are available for free. Download an easy step-by-step guide to making your own
audio guide to animal sounds. (Courtesy of Regan Brooks, teacher, bird nerd, and
leader of the Urban Bird Sounds Project)
Learn more about exploring sound .
*****************************************************************************
Create your own nature blog
What an easy way to share your experiences--write a blog. Parents could read
about their children's nature experiences during the school day. A club could
write about its most recent field trip. You could use text and pictures to show
how you planted a bird-friendly Little Green Place, keep connected with a
grandparent at a senior center, or report sighting an interesting bird in your
neighborhood. You can find lots of bird blogs through your favorite search
engine, or go to our Blogs page, under the Resources section of the Celebrate
Urban Birds web site, where we make some suggestions for connections and teach
you
how to make your own nature blog :
***************************************************************************
Pigeons inspire!
Check out a fantastic art activity that gets you looking at birds,
connecting with nature, building community spirit, and is fun! Decoy, a
wonderful artist from Washington, DC created the activity and presents this neat
project to get your whole neighborhood thinking about birds, community, and the
arts.
Learn more!
*****************************************************************************
Wagner Free Institute of Science: Good data
Staff at the Lab of Ornithology couldn't help but notice many data
observation sheets arriving from this Philadelphia museum.
Wagner Free Institute of Science Museum educator Lauren Zalut helped more
than 350 kids submit data to Celebrate Urban Birds this summer. "Thank you so
much for providing the Wagner with the materials necessary for a fun,
educational, and free activity that exposes urban kids to scientific research,"
she wrote. Follow the link above to read her suggestions for working with large
groups and how to tailor the bird observation for different ages.
*****************************************************************************
We need your help to keep going!
It costs us $2.50 to create and send each Celebrate Urban Birds kit that we
give away for free. Your donations enable us to provide free kits to
community organizations working with underrepresented audiences. Every donation
counts. Please help us meet our goal to give away 150,000 kits by June 30, 2009!
78% of the organizations we work with are reaching underrepresented audiences
and people who are new to birds. For every kit we give to someone who has not
had the opportunity to connect with nature, we get a bit closer to creating a
world that cares about conserving and interacting with nature. It's good for
kids, it's good for families, it's good for seniors, it's good for birds! We
promote healthier neighborhoods, habitat improvement for birds, kids getting
outdoors, and connection with nature.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/celebration/donate
*****************************************************************************
Join Celebrate Urban Birds on Facebook
Join our Facebook group so you can easily share photos, events, and ideas.
Help us make it a great success!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5487246308
*****************************************************************************
We want to feature you
Send us a quick description and photos and we'll feature you on the
Celebrate Urban Birds website. It doesn't need to be fancy or complicated. Just
tell us how you are celebrating urban birds so we can inspire others. Did you
watch birds with your grandchild? Photograph a robin making a nest on a tire?
Hold an evening event at your local library? Watch a Killdeer display in the
parking lot? Each Celebrate Urban Birds participant is unique and exciting! Send
info to urbanbirds@cornell.edu.
Read about other
home-schoolers ,
youth ,
partner organizations ,
libraries ,
mini-grant winners ,
stories ,
4-H clubs
, and
wildlife refuges , on our web site.
*****************************************************************************
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think would be
interested. Anyone can sign up to receive updates by registering for Celebrate
Urban Birds! or by sending us an email at
urbanbirds@cornell.edu. If you don't
want to receive e-mails like this one please let us know by emailing
urbanbirds@cornell.edu and we'll be
happy to remove you from our list.