Wingbeat Blog

This week Perry encounters vast tracts of orchards and farmland. At first, he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing: acres upon acres of the same plants and men spraying the fields. These are common agricultural practices, monocultures and the use of pesticides, but what’s good for us humans is not so great for birds. There are ways to balance the needs of both though, as Perry discovered when he found a flooded field turned bird oasis.

Click on “Read More” below to check out Episode Five and learn about the challenges Perry faces at the fifth leg of his journey and how you can help. Click here to read Episode 4.  Click here to read Episode 6.​

Not too much further into his migration, Perry hits his first big city. He was attracted by the lights, the city acting like a beacon in the night, but Perry found out quickly the city is a harsh place for a little brown bird. With cities becoming more common than open fields or forests, more birds are coming across challenges that they are not used to facing: smog, urban predators, lack of places to feed, noise and light pollution, and building collisions. 

Click on “Read More” below to check out Episode Four and learn about the challenges Perry faces at the fourth leg of his journey and how you can help. Click here to read Episode 3. Click here to read Episode 5. ​

A week into his journey, Perry was flying over something incredibly shocking: miles and miles of tree stumps. What was once a thriving forest is now a lifeless desert. Perry was shocked and dismayed, where would he rest? The forest Perry runs into has been clearcut, which is a logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Why is deforestation such a major issue for birds like Perry?

Click on “Read More” below to check out Episode Three and learn about the challenges Perry faces at the third leg of his jounrney and how you can help. Click here to read Episode 2. Click Here to read Episode 4.​

It’s not been long since Perry left his home and he’s decided to make his first stop at a small town where he’s just hoping to stop and refresh himself. Instead, Perry has quite the adventure, meeting two dangerous predators and narrowly escaping with his life. A predator is any animal that naturally preys on others. Perry was lucky this time, but thousands of little birds run a similar ‘gauntlet’ every day.

​Click on “Read More” below to check out Episode Two and learn about the challenges Perry faces at the second leg of his journey and how you can help. Click here to read Episode 1. Click here to read Episode 3.

Today, Perry’s journey begins. Perry isn’t a specific kind of bird, he’s one of a kind, he represents all migrating birds toughing it out on their long journeys. This year we are catching him on his migration north, from his winter home in South America to his breeding ground in Canada. This seems like quite a long flight, and it is, but most birds do it not just once, but twice a year.

Click on “Read More” below to check out Episode One and learn about the challenges Perry faces at the start of his journey and how you can help, plus see some groovy dance moves that may help Perry meet a mate! Click here to read Episode 2.

​As bustling crowds rush from store to store and family and friends chatter away at their dinner tables, I set up my music stand, pick up my instrument, and introduce a new sound to the cacophony of Castro Street, Mountain View: the sound of my viola. 

​A few months ago, I began “Busking for Birds”—playing my viola on the street for donations that I raise for environmental nonprofits, including SFBBO. I’ve been playing violin for 9 years and viola for 5 years, and on the street, I play a …​

​In late Fall, weary flocks of Golden-crowned Sparrows start to arrive at their wintering grounds across California. One location where the sparrows settle down for the cold months is the University of Santa Cruz Arboretum. This 135-acre garden is brimming with exotic plants, as well as California flora, from Australian cotton-candy-coned Woolly Banksia to native sticky-leaved monkeyflowers.

Professor Bruce Lyon and his graduate students have been banding Golden-crowned Sparrows at the arboretum for over 18 years. Through banding, they attribute behavior and DNA to individuals. The lab has published many studies on sparrow social behavior in conjunction with former graduate students Dai Shizuka, Theadora Block, and Alexis Chaine.

​I have been birding for about nine years and quickly realized how important photography was for me as a birder. Shortly after I began actively birding, I would get home and want to look at the birds I had seen in closer detail or note certain details. However, I often found that I had a hard time recalling so many different details, and there were also instances where I wanted to capture a particular bird or scene.  That is when I realized how valuable photography was going to be for me.    

​With the Great Backyard Bird Count almost upon us, there’s no better time to think about bringing the younger members of the family and the community into the community of birders. The way to start, of course, is to get them out of doors, or to put up a feeder where they’ll see it every day. But sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes a book can help.

Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple, in Crow Not Crow (illustrated by Elizabeth Dulemba, Cornell Publishing Group, 2018), begins with a girl who says, “My brothers all love to go out birding with Dad. ​They don’t have any trouble telling one bird from another. But to me, birds look pretty much the same – wings, beak, and legs.” Her dad knows better.