Celebrate Urban Birds

This week, we received  our research packet for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology program “Celebrate Urban Birds”.   The kit included:

• a celebration poster, designed by Katie Yamasaki, featuring city birds and lots of practical information about how to attract birds to a bird friendly green space
• a packet of dwarf sunflower seeds, so we can grow our own “natural birdfeeders” in the garden
• a silhouette poster with cool facts about urban birds
• data collection form
• Zero Means a Lot sticker

The process is simple.  Pick a time and outdoor place, watch birds for 10 minutes, and complete the data collection form.  The completed form is then mailed back to Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  If you saw no birds at all, then sadly you take out the “Zero Means a Lot” sticker and slap it on your data sheet, showing that you saw no birds.

The only requirement is a 10 minute bird watching on one day.  However, you have the opportunity to do optional days 2 and 3 as well.

On day 1 (morning), we observed the following in our yard:

• house finch
• robin
• mourning dove
• cardinal
• blue jay

On day 2 (morning), we observed the following in our yard:

• mourning dove
• robin
• cardinal
• blue jay

On day 3 (evening) we observed the following in our yard:

• crow(s)
• robin
• starling

If you’d like to request your own free packet of information, go to the Celebrate Urban Birds site.