| Inside Bird Conservation - LEED Projects Save Birds, Photography Webinar, Action Alert and more! Trouble viewing this email? Click here. |  | LEED Projects Save Energy by Saving Birds
The LEED Bird Collision Deterrence pilot credit encourages bird-friendly building design, and the New York City Council recently passed a law mandating bird-friendly design standards, making NYC the largest city in the U.S. to do so. This marks an exciting point in history for bird lovers, and is especially poignant since scientists have found a nearly 30 percent decline in bird populations in North America since 1970. Studies suggest collisions may be killing up to 1 billion birds in the U.S. each year, with buildings with reflective surfaces, especially at lower heights, posing the greatest risks. Read more to learn about strategies, projects with positive outcomes, and actions to make buildings bird-friendly! (U.S. Green Building Council) | | | | | | Join Us on June 11 for a Webinar on Bird Photography
Join Mike Parr, American Bird Conservancy President and bird photography enthusiast, and three special guests for a webinar discussion on how to capture the beauty and action of birds on camera! Mike will review the basics of bird photography, including recommended gear, settings, and other considerations. Then, our award-winning guests will share a few of their favorite shots and how they got them. Featuring Owen Deutsch, the photographer behind our book Bringing Back the Birds; Michael Stubblefield, an accomplished naturalist, scientist, and physician; and Grace Scalzo, author of two gorgeous books on shorebird photography. Please join us on Thursday, June 11, at 4 p.m., and register via the link below to participate in this webinar. | | | | | | | | Ask Congress to Make Buildings Safer for Birds
The Bird-Safe Buildings Act (H.R. 919) has gained momentum in the U.S. House of Representatives and is slated for consideration in committee this spring. This bill would require the General Services Administration to incorporate bird-friendly materials and design features into public buildings, and monitor bird collisions at building sites. These efforts can also help reduce energy use and operating costs. Implementing safeguards at the federal level will set an important precedent for states and localities across the country. New York and other cities have already taken the lead by passing bird-friendly initiatives of their own. Please ask your members of Congress to cosponsor and support the Bird-Safe Buildings Act! | | | | | | | | Still at Home? Help Make Migration Safer for Birds
Instead of pursuing birds this spring, many of us have settled in, watching from windows and yards. While the setting may be ordinary, the impact has been extraordinary. Birds that we've seen hundreds, or thousands, of times before have taken on new significance. They have brightened our days, providing moments of normalcy, hope, and joy. Birds, however, face their own troubles this spring. Millions have already embarked on perhaps the greatest challenge of their lives: migration. Always risky, this journey has become increasingly perilous in recent decades as a continent-wide gauntlet of human dangers — from communication towers to pesticides — has proliferated. Needless to say, birds can use all the help they can get. Read more on seven home activities to help birds find safe harbor on your property! | | | | | | | | To Prevent Another Pandemic, It's Time to End the Global Wild Bird Trade
The tragic emergence of the COVID-19 global pandemic has once again exposed the nexus between human health and wildlife conservation issues. Wild bird markets where birds, other wildlife, and domesticated animals are often confined in crowded, unsanitary conditions are potential breeding grounds for novel viral and other disease pathogens. The vast trade in wild birds also threatens many species around the world. Despite attempts at regulation, this trade still results in the trapping of millions of birds for food, pets, and other human uses each year. Read more from Michael J. Parr and Wes Sechrest, Ph.D, on wild bird markets and why we need to close them. | | | | | | | | Songbirds Tagged in Nicaragua for Monitoring by Motus Network
With support from the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC), and in collaboration with its partners at the El Jaguar Reserve, ABC recently financed and assisted in placing “nanotags,” small radio transmitters, on ten Wood Thrushes and ten Louisiana Waterthrushes in northern Nicaragua. Both songbirds nest in the United States and small portions of southern Canada but winter predominantly in Central America, southern Mexico, and, in the case of the waterthrush, the Caribbean as well. Information gathered via the nanotags, which emit signals automatically recorded by the Motus network's growing number of receiving stations, will inform conservation initiatives to save these and other declining long-distance migrants. | | | | | | | | 10th Anniversary of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Gulf Birds Still Face Threats
April 20 marked the 10th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that tragically killed 11 workers and injured 17. The spill also leaked an estimated 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, leading to a major economic and ecological disaster. As of spring 2020, conservation work conducted along the Texas Coast by ABC and its partners Houston Audubon Society, Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, and Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program shows that while the threat of future oil spills remains, beach-nesting birds are also threatened by severe weather events and human disturbance more frequently than by oil. Read more to learn about severe weather events and human disturbances impacting Gulf birds. | | | | | | | | Minnesota Tree-Planting Push Aims to Buffer Insect Invasion
Black Ash forests, a common forest type in the Great Lakes region, provide breeding and migratory stopover habitat for a wide range of native birds, such as the Golden-winged Warbler, Ovenbird, Red-eyed Vireo, Veery, Northern Waterthrush, and Northern Parula. Minnesota's Black Ash forests also provide nesting locations for Great Blue Herons, and edge habitat used by foraging Ruffed Grouse. These forests are vulnerable to impacts from the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), an introduced invasive insect that destroys ash trees. In spring 2020, ABC, along with public and tribal lands partners within the Lake Superior Basin in Minnesota, launched a project to conduct enrichment planting in Black-Ash-dominated forest stands to increase habitat resilience for the anticipated impact of the region's advancing EAB infestation. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | American Bird Conservancy
P.O. Box 249 | The Plains, Virginia 20198
(540) 253-5780 | info@abcbirds.org | | Photo captions (top to bottom): Banner: FXC SOLM rendering, Statue of Liberty Museum, FX Collaborative; Yellow Warbler, Owen Deutsch; Common Yellowthroat, Greg Homel, Natural Elements Productions, Shutterstock; Scarlet Tanager, Greg Lavaty; Painted Bunting, Steve Byland, Shutterstock; Wood Thrush, Paul Reeves Photography, Shutterstock; Black Skimmer, Jay Gao, Shutterstock; Golden-winged Warbler, Owen Deutsch | | | | | | | |
