ReportWire

Tag: National Audubon Society

  • Gear, goods to celebrate birds and a big global count

    Gear, goods to celebrate birds and a big global count

    [ad_1]

    If you’re planning to take part in the four-day, global Great Backyard Bird Count this month (Feb. 17-20), or if you just love birds, there’s plenty of gear and goods to help you enjoy them.

    RECOGNIZING AND RECORDING

    Merlin and eBird are the apps recommended by the count’s organizers to help you identify birds, get acquainted with local species and enter your findings in a database. Others birding apps include iNaturalist, Song Sleuth and others more specific to regions or species, such as Raptor ID.

    You’ll want a field guide, too. Chad Witko, senior coordinator of avian biology for Audubon’s Migratory Bird Initiative, lists some for U.S. bird watching: “There’s the National Audubon Society `Birds of North America,′ `The Sibley Guide to Birds,′ the Peterson Field Guide series, and renowned naturalist and birder Kenn Kaufman’s books.”

    Witko recommends getting guides with paintings as well as photos so you can see more angles and variations of a species.

    Note and sketch your own observations in a pocket-size waterproof notebook, such as those from Rite in the Rain and Field Notes.

    Periodicals like Birds & Blooms and Bird Watcher’s Digest (BWD) offer birding basics.

    Witko also recommends finding a birding mentor. Social media sites often have bird-watching groups where more seasoned birders share their knowledge and promote outings.

    “So many tips, tricks, ID advice and more are passed down through generations of birders,” he says.

    BIRD SPOTTING

    Witko recommends binoculars with a magnification of 8x for beginning birders. That means you’ll see an object 800 meters away as if it were 100 meters away. “They’re the most versatile,” he says.

    Aleta Burchyski, an outdoors writer and birder in Santa Fe, New Mexico, says it’s easy to spend $500 or more on field binoculars, but for casual birdwatching she has a pair of rugged Nocs, which go for $95, and are waterproof and fog-proof. They weigh significantly less than many higher-end binoculars, and the 8x magnification is enough to see feather and beak details.

    Witko also suggests getting a longer strap than the one that comes standard with most binoculars.

    “Buy one that can be extended to wear over the shoulder like a sling, or purchase a harness to keep the weight off your neck,” he says.

    Harnesses can also help steady your focus. You’ll find options from outdoor brands like Nyack Exchange, Trummul and outdoors retailers.

    Nocs makes a photo ring adaptor that attaches to binoculars and aligns your phone lens to them for photos and videos.

    And digiscoping is a trend. You use a spotting scope to line up with your smartphone or camera to zero in and capture images more accurately than if you had just pointed your regular lens at the subject.

    FEEDERS

    Watching birds from your window can yield great results, and different bird feeders are designed to attract different birds.

    “Tube feeders filled with sunflower seeds are great for most backyard birds, as are hopper or tray feeders,” says Witko. “Black oil sunflower seeds are hands-down the best and will attract the most species — chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, jays, doves, sparrows, grosbeaks and finches.

    “I also recommend thistle feeders to attract finches like goldfinches, siskins and redpolls. And suet feeders for woodpeckers, nuthatches and wrens.”

    If your feeder is on a deck or porch, consider “no mess” seed mixes that have no shells.

    Bird Buddy’s AI-equipped feeder alerts you when winged visitors come calling. If you aren’t able to take the photo yourself, it will do that, and also identify the birds and organize the photos into a collection. A solar panel is available to power the gadget. Mount the feeder on a wall or post, and you can add suet balls or water dispensers too.

    Squirrel-proof feeders hang on a branch or mount on a pole. Dunford’s has a metal skirt that drops when a squirrel tries to climb aboard, closing off the seed portals.

    “Always keep feeders far enough from the house so that birds aren’t likely to fly into windows,” says Witko. Also, place feeders in an area that allows birds to hide if they need to, and that lets them see any approaching predators like cats and hawks.

    Cleaning feeders is also critically important, he says.

    BIRDHOUSES

    There are all kinds of birdhouses made of weather-resistant materials and painted in all kinds of designs. If you want to make your own, Duncraft and BestNest are among those with DIY kits, for wrens, bluebirds and purple martins.

    ORNITHOLOGICAL HOME DECOR

    Just want to show your love of our avian friends indoors too?

    From Charley Harper, the artist who was known for modern, graphic illustrations of birds, comes a set of decals that let you create your own migratory flock on a wall. Glassware features cardinals and other wild birds, and there are coasters, doormats and wall art, all at the Charley Harper Art Studio.

    A more low-key flock can be found at West Elm. Mej Mej has a wall decal set showing a dozen watercolored birds; another includes a pair of bluebirds.

    A set of three carved bronze birds perched on wooden columns are at Pottery Barn for a contemporary display on a side table or bookshelf. The retailer also has an organic percale duvet set patterned with colorful birds.

    And side tables at Society 6 have tops featuring depictions of birds from all corners of the skies.

    —-

    New York-based writer Kim Cook covers design and decor topics regularly for The AP. Follow her on Instagram at @kimcookhome.

    —

    For more AP Lifestyles stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/lifestyle.

    —

    CORRECTS: This story was first published on Feb. 15, 2023. It was updated on Feb. 16, 2023, to correct the name of a scientist at Audubon’s Migratory Bird Initiative. He is Chad Witko, not Chad Witco.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • At 25, Backyard Bird Count shows power of citizen science

    At 25, Backyard Bird Count shows power of citizen science

    [ad_1]

    By JULIA RUBIN

    February 15, 2023 GMT

    It’s a given that when the Great Backyard Bird Count begins Friday, Steve and Janet Kistler of Hart County, Kentucky, will be joining in. They’ve done so every year since the now-global tradition began 25 years ago.

    For Moira Dalibor, a middle-school math teacher a couple hours away in Lexington, this will be the first count. She’s leading a group of students and parents to an arboretum for an exercise in data-gathering.

    They’re expected to be among hundreds of thousands of people around the world counting and recording over four days. Last year, about 385,000 people from 192 countries took part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, or GBBC.

    “Every year we see increased participation,” and 2022 was a big jump, says Becca Rodomsky-Bish, the project’s leader at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in Ithaca, New York, which organizes the count along with the National Audubon Society and Birds Canada.

    In India, which had the highest participation outside the U.S. last year, tens of thousands of people submitted bird checklists — a 28% increase from 2021.

    This global data goes into the eBird database used by scientists for research on bird populations, which have declined sharply overall in past decades. It’s part of a rise in “citizen science” projects in which volunteers collect data about the natural world for use by researchers.

    And if it gets more people interested in bird-watching, so much the better, says Steve Kistler.

    “It’s fun and important to get the numbers, but it’s just a joyful thing to do,” says Kistler, 71, who leads bird-watching trips near his home and abroad.

    Many bird-watchers use eBird year-round, and it has collected huge amounts of data — often between 1 million and 2 million bird checklists a month from around the world in the past couple of years, says Rodomsky-Bish.

    Those numbers help researchers track the ups and downs of various species, which then helps determine the direction of conservation efforts.

    “The net number of birds around the world — we’re losing them,” says Rodomsky-Bish.

    A 2019 study by Cornell researchers found there were 3 billion fewer birds in North America than in 1970.

    “The bad news is that the declines are coming out strong and hard in the data,” Rodomsky-Bish adds. “The good news is if we didn’t have that data, we wouldn’t know. And that helps a lot of areas take direct action.”

    The pandemic contributed to the surge in interest in the GBBC and birds in general, she says.

    “Birds were company during this period of isolation,” she says, and observing them “is an accessible way to connect with the natural world. Birds are everywhere. You don’t have to leave your house. They will come. … And they’re charismatic. They’re fun and fascinating to watch.”

    Compared to other counts — including Audubon’s 123-year-old Christmas Bird Count and the Cornell Lab’s Project FeederWatch — the GBBC is accessible to beginners.

    How it works: Participants watch birds, whether that means looking out the window for 15 minutes or taking a longer trip to a nature area. Organizers recommend the Merlin bird ID app to distinguish birds by size, shape, song or other characteristics. Many participants also carry field guides and binoculars along with their phones.

    They then enter the findings into the eBird app.

    “Anyone can say, ‘I can contribute to science — it’s easy. I can identify one bird over a four-day period and I’ve done my part,’” says Rodomsky-Bish.

    Counting in February, she says, provides a snapshot right before many birds start their annual spring migrations.

    Dalibor, who teaches at the Redwood Cooperative School in Kentucky, has been preparing her classes with information about local species and practicing with the Merlin app. The kids will record bird sightings with pencils and clipboards, and parent volunteers will enter those numbers on phones.

    “It’ll be authentic data that we collected ourselves that real scientists are going to use. There’s purpose and action behind it, which is special for them, being connected to the wider world,” Dalibor says.

    Giving young children an appreciation of nature is the priority for Ganeshwar SV, director of the Salem Ornithological Foundation in India. He helps get schools involved in conservation programs, including the GBBC, and says the goal “is not to count but to just enjoy birds.”

    “In rural areas, it’s not unusual for children to wander around and use catapults (slingshots) and to kill birds,” he says. Now, “the hands that used catapults to hit birds are the same hands that are building nest boxes and taking notes about birds and their behavior.”

    The students don’t have smartphones, he says, and “wouldn’t have seen a binocular in real life.” They write up their sightings in notebooks.

    Steve Kistler, in rural Kentucky, advises beginners to “start easy, birding around home. Or join a group going out that day.”

    Don’t worry about exact counts, he says: “If 50 grackles fly by in a flock, you get pretty good at estimating. For the purposes of what you’re doing, we don’t have to have it down to the last grackle.”

    Bird counts can get competitive, too.

    “If you can beat last year’s number of species, well that’s a good day,” Kistler says.

    ___

    For more AP stories on birds, go to https://apnews.com/hub/birds.

    [ad_2]

    Source link