The Warblers by Birds Canada

The Bird Friendly City

• Andres Jiménez and Andrea Gress for Birds Canada • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Spring approaches and the birds are rapidly migrating back to their summer homes. They are taking up residence across Canada, preparing to nest in our backyards, local parks, and even in industrial areas. We love seeing and hearing them return for the summer. With three-quarters of Canada’s population residing in urban areas, and many of our favourite bird species sharing those spaces with us…how do we make sure our urban environments are safe places for birds?

We chat with Tim Beatley, author of The Bird-Friendly City, and long-time advocate for developing urban areas that co-exist with nature and emphasize high biodiversity. Following Tim, Sara Jordan-McLachlan joins us from Calgary to discuss how she and other volunteers are working to make the city more Bird Friendly, and how you can strive for the same in your hometown.

Timothy Beatley is  Professor of Sustainable Communities, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last twenty-five years. Much of Beatley’s work focuses on the subject of sustainable communities, and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. Beatley believes that sustainable and resilient cities represent our best hope for addressing today’s environmental challenges. 

Sara Jordan-McLachlan is a Calgarian member of the Bird-Friendly Calgary Team as a community member with a BSc in Zoology and an MSc in Environmental Practice. She is a volunteer member of the Calgary Migratory Species Response Team, a group that works to identify and mitigate window strikes in downtown Calgary and a member of the City's biodiversity Advisory Committee.   She is also the current coordinator for Calgary Captured, a long-term remote camera study in the city focused on wildlife movement and habitat connectivity. You can reach her at birdfriendlycalgary@gmail.com or me personally at sara.n.jordan@hotmail.com.

Find out more about Biophilic cities here.
Find out more about Nature Canada's Bird-Friendly City certification here

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Andrea Gress:

You're listening to the Warblers a birds Canada Podcast. I'm Andrea Gress

Andres Jimenez Monge:

and I am Andres Jimenez.

Andrea Gress:

Join us as we travel uncommon flight paths with our guests gaining insights and inspiration from the world of birds and bird conservation in Canada. Today's episode is going to be all about bird friendly cities we hear about you know, bird friendly coffee and bird friendly this and that, but cities is what we're going to get into today. We've got author Tim Beatley. Joining us he wrote bird friendly city and has all kinds of interesting insights into how cities can become more bird friendly. And then following that, we're going to chat with Sarah Jordan McLachlan, who is on the ground in Calgary working to make the city a better place for birds.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Cities have historically form on rivers and shorelines and harbors places that facilitate commerce and transportation. But these are precisely the places that are essential habitat and migration corridors for birds. Jim Bonner, Executive Director of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania told me birds are still coming through urban areas because they were doing it before they were urban areas just because we've built a lot of buildings and suburbs around it that doesn't change their migratory paths. So cities must play an important part in the future of birds. And as this book will explain, many cities are beginning to take aggressive steps to make room for birds.

Andrea Gress:

Ooh, I like that. I like that a lot. It's really thought provoking. What were you reading from address?

Andres Jimenez Monge:

I was reading from the bird friendly city by Timothy Beatley creating safe urban habitats.

Andrea Gress:

Yeah, a lot of thought provoking stuff there, birds, bird friendly cities. What does that even mean? Right?

Andres Jimenez Monge:

It's really interesting, because he says that birds allowed for all of us to be conservationists, welcome to the podcast. Tim, thank you could start by telling us about your work.

Tim Beatley:

Sure. So I teach here at the University of Virginia. And I teach in an urban and environmental planning department. So one of the big hats that I wear is a professor. So I have been teaching here for more than 30 years, mostly in the area of environment, environmental planning, environmental policy, mostly having to do with cities. So my teaching and my research have for a long time had had mostly to do with thinking about how how we can better plan cities to protect the environment and and to connect us to nature. So that's one hat connected to that as work we're doing around biophilic cities that we'll probably talk some more about today, we have this global network of cities called biophilic cities, 25 cities actually in this network. So I was a sort of an activist advocacy role that I that I play, as well, you know, kind of more recent for me, but it's all it's all interconnected around ideas to relate it to nature and cities. So basically,

Andres Jimenez Monge:

you've dedicated a lot of time into thinking about nature and cities.

Tim Beatley:

Yeah, I have on many different levels, you know, for me, like a lot of us who have an interest in environment, to love, love the environment, or have a connection to nature, there's usually you know, a longer personal story. And it there certainly is, for me, I grew up very much in a city but also very much with lots of trees and nature around me and being spending a lot of time outside. And actually, this is where, you know, my interest in birds developed as a as a young kid, I had parents who were interested in this as well and a mom who was who was frequently identifying birds. So it I think for a lot of us, it goes back to childhood, right and, and those things that have had a huge impact on us and who we are as adults. So there's a sort of, you know, academic, and career pathway that one can describe, but there's also just a personal pathway. For me, that has all been about nature and nature, being a big part of my life and a big part of what makes all of our lives, you know, so interesting and worth living.

Andrea Gress:

I can't agree more like I grew up in rural Saskatchewan. And that was such a big part of why I got into nature. And I think same for Andrus, with Costa Rica and snakes and reptiles and all the nature that he was surrounded with growing up, right, we're, that's absolutely been part of how we've gotten into what we do. So could you tell us what caused you to write the bird friendly city?

Tim Beatley:

I've had this long standing interest in in nature and biodiversity and actually like Andres, I, I have an early love affair with snakes, yes, as well. That could be the whole focus of our discussion, but it was everything really and and so the idea of living with all of this other life around us in cities has been a big focus for a lot of what I do. So the idea of a biophilic city is really a city that makes space for other many other forms of life. It's a multi species city, there's an ethical duty I believe. Leave to make room and to make space and to and to find actively find ways to coexist. And so birds are a big part of that. Obviously, birds are that kind of nature that I think a lot of us don't necessarily a lot of folks see birds hear them, they maybe aren't thinking a lot about them, perhaps, but yet they are so so important in creating the positive spaces around where we live. But yet, it seemed to me that there wasn't enough attention being paid, particularly amongst architects and urban designers and developers and others about birds. Part of the motivation here comes from teaching in a school of architecture for more than 30 years. And even though we know that glass buildings and glass facades and windows are a huge threat to birds, almost no attention to birds, given in the education of architects. And so part of the motivation was we need a book, we need to be talking explicitly about what it is that city planners, urban planners, urban designers, architects, landscape architects ought to be doing on behalf of birds or for birds. And we ought to, you know, as we are increasingly an urbanized planet, more and more of us living in cities, cities have to be a big part of the answer. And so thus the the idea behind behind the book,

Andres Jimenez Monge:

in your book, you use the term biophilic cities, you actually use this term as a title of your book. Can you please define for us what a biophilic city is?

Tim Beatley:

Well, there's no there's no simple definition, but building on the concept of biophilia course so biophilia, the the love of nature and living systems, living things, this terminology and idea that that EO Wilson had Wilson really coined at least the way we we think of it today that we have this innate connection or this innate affiliation with with with nature, to be truly happy and healthy and to lead meaningful lives. We believe you've got to have nature around you. Nature is not something optional. It's absolutely essential to leading a happy, healthy life and we have co evolved with with nature. And it's not a big surprise that in the presence of of nature, we are calmer, we're in a better mood. Our cognitive performance goes up evidence that we're even more likely to be more likely to be generous Margiela likely to think longer term, lot of evidence about just you know how better human beings we are when we have nature all around us so so the idea of a city that loves nature is one that obviously has lots of nature, ideally, we you know, we want to be immersed in nature in those cities. So we want to have parks and greenery and trees and and we want to be designing every every building in a city so that it's got abundant nature in it, designed in it and around it. So green rooftops, and living walls and sky parks and all these things that we're doing now as a, as a sort of matter of standard building practice in many places contribute to this vision of a biophilic city. But I want to start it to say was that a biophilic city and a bird friendly city is not just about the presence of nature or the presence of birds, but it's also about the the perspective, the attitude, attitudes of the people who live in those cities. So that's one of that's a kind of key idea behind Biophilia. It's, it's engaging that that nature, and it's caring about that nature. And so with respect to birds, that that means, you know, actively watching, being curious, seeing those birds around us as fellow citizens in this biophilic city in this bird friendly city. In the book, there's a little bit of a discussion about how you know, every school could could be thought of as a bird habitat and designed as a bird habitat, and that we should be you know, teaching kids from an early age to identify birds and learn about birds.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Tim, you've told us that a bird friendly city is one that has a lot of nature around and that a bird friendly city is one that will make us better humans that will make us feel better. And that is a clear reason of things we will gain by going to bird friendly cities. And in your book, you use this term Birdcity is. And I was wondering if you could tell us what is the city on high-birdicity and can even give us an example of what you think is a city that is highly bird friendly.

Tim Beatley:

I don't necessarily want to create one more crazy word.

Andrea Gress:

It's a fun word, though.

Tim Beatley:

It's fun... yeah. High Birdicity I don't know just some kind of measure some kind of indicator, you know, metric for understanding how bird friendly city is right and not necessarily going to be quantitative or precise. But But I do think that there's a table or two or one primary table that sort of lists some some things that would characterize a bird friendly city we do need some some different metrics for judging the goodness of a city We haven't, I think done a very good job with this. But we've tended to emphasize economic metrics, right? And GDP. It's, you know, it's all of that that's a very sort of narrow way of looking at cities. So in the book and in presentations, I'm often saying, Well, why don't we judge the goodness of the city by its birdsong. So a city where every resident in every neighborhood is able to hear Birdsong, native species. You know, birdsong is a wonderful kind of metric of for me of what a good city could be. And we can go from there and talk about what some other metrics might be. But I think we need to expand our our vision of what of what a good city is, or, or could be beyond just some of the economic typically economic metrics or measures that we, we tend to use.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

You even see in your book, a city with no Birdsong, it's not a city worth living in. And that's something very important I feel that many cities are trying to attract talent, many cities are trying to appear as a fantastic place to live. So people will continue to live on them right particular after COVID. And I want to ask you for an example, because I think that idea is powerful. It's a powerful idea, the birdsong and the measure of birdsong is what makes our city livable.

Tim Beatley:

You ask an interesting question, undress about, you know, how to how to how do we sell cities? Or how do we market you know, we want cities that will be attractive to business, that's often least the Chamber of Commerce kind of perspective on cities. And it's true that the cities that tend to be the most attractive to corporations and companies, and I'm thinking for example of of Tesla, just moving their headquarters to Austin, Texas. Well, Austin is a member in our Biophilic Cities Network is partner city, and they're embracing nature have for many, many years, and it's also a bird friendly city as well, I would say, they're not doing it just because they want companies to locate there. But it's definitely true that the things that you do to make a city more nature full, more biophilic more bird friendly, will also be just more attractive, and more attractive places to live, and more companies will realize that, you know, those are places where their, their, their employees, their staff want to live. This was the argument that Richard Daley, Mayor Daley of Chicago, made many years ago there, and that city and a city, you know, that started installing green rooftops and pocket parks and making themselves more bicycle friendly, doing a lot of things, in part because they realized that that was good business.

Andrea Gress:

Yeah, I always think of a nice cities to live in as being places that are easy walks to natural areas, no matter where I am in the city. You know, if I'm working in a downtown office building, and I want to pop somewhere for lunch, do I have a nice natural area within walking distance or not, you know, what I think, I think that really plays into what I picture as a nice place to live. And of course, that goes hand in hand with the birds, right? If there's lots of natural areas, you're gonna have a nice bird friendly city,

Tim Beatley:

our vision of a biophilic City is one of them, immersive nature, right, it's this idea that we move from this, this model of a city or this vision of a city where we have we have a few parks here and there we have a few places where there are trees and nature that we have to walk to, to visit or spend time and to this more kind of embedded you know, we're we're actually living in the park, we're living in the forest, where nature is all around us. And there are no perfect examples of this but some of our cities like Singapore city state come pretty close to that. So you can you're describing your office you know, hopefully you'll have some nature around you in the spaces in the interior spaces even of your your working work environment, but the ability to open a window and perhaps hear birds, seabirds feel a breeze and as you walk out of that building, having all this nature all around you the pathways, the walkways that you take to move maybe from your work to your to your home, you'll hear and see birds. And then you know, it's it's it's all around you, you're immersed in it. And and that that's the that's the vision that's sort of taking hold, and in a lot of our cities and birds are a big part of that.

Andrea Gress:

A bird friendly city is not just a place that's implementing tools and new buildings to make buildings more friendly, but but they're engaging the people. There's education, there's programs for individuals, and ultimately we're working towards that really diverse natural city that we're living in. We're not so much living in a separate city from the birds. We're living with them in a natural environment.

Tim Beatley:

Yes, very true. Well said.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

We'll be right back. How do you like your coffee Andrea cream, sugar?

Andrea Gress:

I like mine, bird friendly, certified,

Andres Jimenez Monge:

then I have just to brew for you. Birds and beans. Coffee Roasters only use beans from farmers who keep the native forests habitat. intact growing coffee in the shade of a variety of native trees.

Andrea Gress:

That's good for migratory birds.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Good for everyone. This coffee is even certified by the Smithsonian migratory bird center. It protects biodiversity support sustainable farming, and it's Fairtrade and organic to

Andrea Gress:

ah, not to mention delicious,

Andres Jimenez Monge:

deliciously bird friendly if any of our listeners also like their coffee bird friendly certified here's how to get it ordered online at Burton beans.ca/warblers. Make sure to use this slash webinars because that means Burton beans will also donate 10% of the purchase price to support this podcast. You can also use the link on your podcast player sounds

Andrea Gress:

great Andres How about another cup? Let's

Andres Jimenez Monge:

do it. Do you have an example of the city that you think is really really bird friendly?

Tim Beatley:

Frequently Toronto is the top of my list and I have to give a lot of credit to people like Michael me sewer you know who worked for so many so many years to on behalf of birds and and just getting you know citizens getting regular folks to think about you know birds and to volunteer to go on that early morning walk around downtown Toronto right looking for dead or injured birds and ultimately raising awareness about the impact of a city and its and its buildings on on bird so so like with biophilic cities, I'm frequently asked about where's the best biophilic city or what what's the gold standard? I frequently resist that a bit because it is our network really is an aspirational network. So we don't certify cities as being biophilic. You know, we we want every city to push itself and to set higher standards and do more.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Are there people who have concerns about making cities bird friendly?

Tim Beatley:

and not very many, but I do encounter some folks who who react it's less this kind of sharply negative view. And it's almost more about indifference, right? It's it's people who have maybe lived in very and grown up in very dense urban environments, maybe where there weren't very many trees. And there, you know, there wasn't much nature around them. And and there were undoubtedly birds there. But they they didn't see them or hear them or they just just haven't been important. I mean, there is a certain group of folks who who have what I would call the inverse of biophilia, which kind of bio phobia there's almost a fear of nature. But I don't encounter very many people like that. The obstacles, though, I think do emerge at the level of implementing, you know, policy and ordinances and codes or bylaws and the Canadian language of things. So a bird safe design requirement is certainly when these things have been discussed in cities like San Francisco and New York and Chicago and other places, there's certainly are some who object or worry or raise objections about what that will mean in terms of raising the cost of the building. I mean, we know that it's a tiny, little bit of the cost of construction. And increasingly, what we're finding is with bird bird safe windows, right, and projects like the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York, that once they, you know, totally retrofitted all their windows with fitted bird, bird friendly windows, pretty remarkable reduction in bird mortality, but they also found that the energy consumption in the building went down. Well, so there are these sort of counter benefits right to whatever whatever potential increasing in building costs there there are, there are people who object but you know, what I'm hearing more so these days, is about the ways in which birds have been a saving grace, right? during, during the pandemic, especially that so many people have told me, I'm paying more attention to the birds and that, by the way, I've gone out and I've, you know, bought a bird feeder, and I'm buying bird seed, and I'm, you know, I'm listening to those birds and seeing those birds in a way that, you know, they didn't before before the pandemic. So I think literally, we've hatched a new generation of bird lovers during the pandemic, you see what we'll see if that carries over. And but I think it bodes well for the for the future.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

That's a beautiful way of seeing it. And it makes it's quite interesting that you mentioned the decals and the treatment and windows a while back, I heard from marketing in Costa Rica, who was talking who was designing something and said, Well, you know, why put the bird treatment, it looks ugly, and it makes me think of this resistant when it comes to the aesthetics of the cost. Yeah, on the costs. And I think there's a narrow reductionist vision that is clouding the way we see it. But from the aesthetics perspective, I think it's a failure of imagination, because so many other people have taken the window treatment one step farther and make awesome designs that are incredibly appealing and are way beyond meeting the legislation when it comes to breaking reflectivity. Yeah,

Tim Beatley:

you can incorporate art Yeah, absolutely. You can. Yeah, building can be very, very creative and different and and architects like that, right? That's what they're often after the client may not want that necessarily. But architects, you know, want to have something in their portfolio that's different breaking a new path. And why not? Why not make something that's beautiful and distinctive and unusual, but also bird friendly.

Andrea Gress:

And I would think as the whole city strives towards the same common goal, you're gonna see so many more benefits to employers say a new company wants to relocate, and they're trying to recruit top tier talent to that new city. Are they going to want to go to a, you know, kind of a dead concrete place? Or would they rather move to a city that's got a lot of life within it? You know, I think if people don't even they might not realize they're making that decision. But but they are. It's it's absolutely feeding into the decision to move to a new place. Yeah, definitely. Oh, this is all been really interesting, Tim, but now we've got to get into, you know, how do we make this change happen, especially in cities where it's not happening yet?

Tim Beatley:

I don't have a perfect answer. But I do partly, I've been really impressed the last few months where because of this book, I've had a lot of invitations to speak. So I guess I have some hope that they're already in place a lot of wonderful grassroots efforts and grassroots organizations that bird groups but others as well, right that care care about birds or care more generally about nature. So that's one answer, I guess is is to think about how it happens in a in a political you know, arena, how it happens through a city council and how it happens through political activism. And, and so that that's ultimately maybe the only way it's gonna go in to happen.

Andrea Gress:

hmm mmm get people involved, eh?

Tim Beatley:

get people involved in pushing their their elected representatives, planners are generally very supportive of conservation, and many of them love birds. But there isn't much content in a typical local government plan about birds with a few exceptions. So I think that there are opportunities for particular professions push along and to make progress on behalf of birds and urban planners would be one of them, architects and urban designers would be another category that could do things that would that would help birds.

Andrea Gress:

Lots of qualified people go into building buildings and designing cities, and if they were fully on board, and if their universities were on board and, and really pushing the message through

Tim Beatley:

Yeah

Andres Jimenez Monge:

what makes me hopeful is that either a bird friendly city or a biophilic city, or any improvement that we do for habitat in cities will help many other organisms that use our city.

Andrea Gress:

This is just like bird friendly coffee. Like I'm starting to think when you see the word bird friendly, stuck next to something that that's ultimately what we're getting at. It's not just that the coffee is bird friendly, but it's creating habitat for other species as well. And it's the same thing with bird friendly cities. It's absolute, it's a bigger, larger scale thing the birds just happened to be a really accessible and relatable link that we can all get you lovable Absolutely. And on

Andres Jimenez Monge:

that note, same as bird friendly coffee, Tim, how can our listener support the change for cities to become bird friendly

Tim Beatley:

again, there are almost always going to be some local groups that you you know, you could connect with and some are quite small, some are quite large look in your city and find organizations that are doing things and just begin to show up you know, maybe it's a morning birdwalk or you know that that would be one way to get started you could download the E bird app you could download I naturalist and start to do things with your phone every almost everybody has you know has a smartphone set some modest goals about paying attention to birds begin to think also about ways that things that you could do in and around your home that would help to make it more bird friendly. I think you know, one answer is is the kind of political activism getting engaged with some of the local groups becoming active at that level but then you know, there's so many things you can we can just do at the level of an individual you know of a homeowner planting some native species of plants that will be better for birds or when we're planting trees think think about those species like in my part of the world white oaks that are going to be so much better for a for birds and then thinking about the windows, you know, around our homes. We haven't talked at all about cats. But you know many of us who are bird lovers are also cat lovers. And we know that domestic feral cats represent a huge threat to birds even bigger than thin glass and and so thinking about that taking some care, keeping our cats and inside there are a lot of things that we could do in our own lives that would be very helpful for birds.

Andrea Gress:

Start by learning about birds dive into the bird worlds and make personal changes, but also learn about local groups because I can guarantee you're gonna be able to find something somewhere maybe you won't have a big in person event, but you'll be able to contribute that data and yeah, and get involved. And then of course, take that to your city planners and to the people calling the shots.

Tim Beatley:

And if there isn't a group, you know, in your city, maybe you live in a small city, maybe there isn't group you can start one.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Thank you for joining us, Tim. This was a brilliant interview. Oh, thank you We heard from Tim why the Birdicity is critical for birds to survive in urban environments, but also for cities to be a healthier and better place for humans to inhabit. Who would want to miss bird songs or the incredible encounters with wildlife where you least

Andrea Gress:

expected? Yeah, Tim talked about one of those initiatives Biophilic Cities, which I really love, but we also wanted to chat more about what's going on in Canada. One of the efforts that's making Canadian cities friendlier for birds is the bird friendly city by Nature Canada. This is a certification program where nature groups, municipal officials and other community groups and nonprofits are teaming up with Nature Canada to ensure urban environments are safe havens for birds, rather than a source of threats.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

The program has an advisory panel that includes Birds Canada, Quebec Oiseaux, Flap Canada, the University of Virginia, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and UBC.

Andrea Gress:

So without further ado, we welcome Sarah Jordan-McLachlan from the Calgary bird friendly city team. Welcome, Sarah.

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Sarah, tell us how you've gotten involved in this work. What's your goal?

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

So I came to the bird friendly Calgary team through the Calgary migratory species Response Team, which is a volunteer organization in the city that goes downtown and looks for birds and bats that have been affected by window strikes. And through there, we were offered the opportunity to become a part of the bird friendly Calgary team and help the city get certified. And I saw that as a really cool opportunity to be a part of something bigger, neat, and also an opportunity maybe to help support biodiversity in general in the city as well.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

So you're doing this as a volunteer? Yes, yep. We

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

are all volunteers on our team.

Andrea Gress:

And so you're working to get the City of Calgary certified as bird friendly? How would you say that process is going how bird friendly is it currently.

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

So last May, Calgary actually became one of the first four cities in Canada to be certified. So we along with Toronto, London and Vancouver were certified. But we were just at the entry level, which means that we're pretty bird friendly. But we've got a lot of work to do. In terms of you know, habitat restoration, and habitat connectivity, we're doing pretty good. We've got an excellent ecological network in the city. But we've also got some work to do in mitigating the threats to birds and wildlife in general.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

And so what's the value of working towards making your city more bird friendly?

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

Well, for one, it's a badge of honor. It shows both Calgarians and people outside the city that we are thinking about the needs of something other than people in our development decisions and in our policies. And secondly, I think it provides a really great opportunity to bring seemingly unrelated topics under one umbrella, you know, to look at them as a whole and look at them from a different perspective. So I mean, if you think about it, how often do you hear roaming cats light pollution, coffee, native plants all put together in one category? They seem like they seem like very separate things. But when you put them all under the same umbrella as threats to birds, suddenly you have an opportunity to look at it in a different way. Thanks. So often, policies are written in silos where it is just treating them as individual issues. And this provides an opportunity to think of different ways of dealing with an issue and also enables different groups like our volunteer organizations to be a part of the solutions and think differently, rather than just leaving it all up to the city and having them take on the burden of all of this. We can together work to come up with creative solutions,

Andrea Gress:

a common goal. And in the end, you're going to end up with a more natural city and more livable place. It's going to feel good to be there and hear the bird song.

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

Absolutely.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Why focus on birds? Why not a wider vide versity approach?

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

Well, biodiversity in general, it's a very big, big topic. And birds are something that's it's kind of like a gateway to biodiversity. It's introducing people to biodiversity. There's something that's so visible on our landscapes, they're in our backyards, they're in our parks, they're kind of everywhere, and there's something easy to connect with for people and we can see if birds are present or birds are not present, it creates a really easy thing for people to grab on to and understand. And then we also have the opportunity from there. The birds are so interconnected with everything else in the environment. I mean, we have birds eat insects, so no insects, no birds, you know, other things eat birds, so without those birds how do those animals survive? We have the role of seed dispersal if we don't have birds, dispersing seeds, what grows? So we have all these other interconnections we can lead to from birds. And they're just an excellent kind of a gateway to biodiversity for everybody.

Andrea Gress:

How do you think the average Calgarian is feeling about this shift to bird friendly? And has there been any negative pushback?

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

So far, we've had a lot of support. But I think in terms of actually understanding what that means, and what we're working towards, has been fairly quiet. So far, we haven't really affected too many different things, it's so far been a gathering of what's available in the city, rather than making those changes now that we're starting to make those changes, we're not necessarily facing any resistance, but maybe a bit of hesitation in a couple of ways. For instance, we are working on a pamphlet for cameos that we thought maybe we could hand out with adopted cats through rescue organizations in the city. And we did encounter maybe a bit of hesitation, that maybe this was an anti cat campaign, just given the traditional perspective that bird people hate cats, which is really absolutely not the case. I mean, almost all of our team has cats. But yeah, I mean, I've got two cats, I've always had cats, I've worked in animal welfare. And I don't see the two things as fighting competing issues. They're one in the same that we can work on helping cats stay safer, and also help birds as well. So making sure we're framing things that support everybody's goals, and making sure that everybody's on board has been really important to us for sure.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

One of the biggest aspects of the project is selecting a city bird. I remember I think that in the case of Vancouver, they got the city bird got more votes than the mayor. So tell us about selecting the city's bird. How is that going? When can people vote?

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

Sure. So we are in the process of our bird city campaign or official bird campaign at the moment, and we have narrowed it down to five species. So we reached out to several nonprofit environmental organizations in the city as well as the treaty seven nations and maytee. region three asking for input on what they think Calgary's bird should be. And from that, we got a list of 41 species that were voted for. And so we got it narrowed down to five species now. And now Yeah, so we're working with the city.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Tell us which are the species come on? You cannot leave it like that.

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

Right. I can't leave it like that. So we do have five species. So we have the Black Capped Chickadee black build Magpie northern flicker, red breasted nut hatch and the blue J

Andres Jimenez Monge:

represent not hatch for the win.

Andrea Gress:

Man, some love for the love for the magpie. They often get thrown under the bus. Okay,

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

like, yeah, I was actually surprised they got the second most amount of votes in with those groups. So they're very much a contender in there for sure.

Andrea Gress:

Thank you so much for everything you've shared today. Sarah, before we wrap up, are there any specific groups or clubs that you'd want to give a shout out to so that any of our listeners in Calgary know where to look if they want to get involved?

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

Yeah, if anybody wants to connect directly with the bird friendly Calgary team, we do have a Facebook page, bird friendly Calgary. You can also reach us through our Gmail which is just bird friendly. calgary@gmail.com other groups in the city if you want to directly get involved, you can speak with the Calgary wildlife rehabilitation society, the Alberta Institute for wildlife conservation or the Calgary migratory species Response Team. All of those groups are on the ground. You're interacting with wildlife firsthand and you can kind of have that direct connection there. You could also look at places like nature Calgary friends of Fish Creek or the weasel head Glenmore Park Preservation Society, where there's excellent opportunities for both citizen science education, getting out in our natural areas and connecting with birds.

Andrea Gress:

I love it. So on to you, everyone in Calgary, get out and enjoy it and get involved. Yes, please. Great. Thank you so much, Sara, it's been really wonderful having you tell us about the program.

Sara Jordan-McLachlan:

Thank you so much for having me.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Before we leave, there are some citizen signs and volunteer programs you can join. First, we're running a survey about the podcast we want to understand who is listening and why we also want to hear from you and what actions have you taken for birds since you discovered our podcast? And above all, what would you like to hear next? The survey is open and you can fill it out by clicking the link in the episode description. We will be sure to share the most interesting results in the upcoming episode.

Andrea Gress:

Awesome. So that's for everybody, no matter where you are. For people who are in BC we've got a really exciting a survey happening during April and May it is the long build Curlew survey if you want to join contact BC volunteer at burns canada.org. This is the provinces first population estimate for Curlew since 2005. So it's a really big deal and they need all the hands they can get.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

Yes. And for everyone listening you can join the marsh monitoring program and Canadian lakes loon survey shout out to our previous episode on loons. Yeah. Which is also ramping. With the spraying around the corner, and so in order to do that go to birds Canada's website and look for the marsh monitoring program and Canadian lexan survey.

Andrea Gress:

Yeah, I mean, marshes are one of North America's most threatened ecosystems, so be part of that long running effort to monitor the birds and amphibian populations.

Andres Jimenez Monge:

That's it for today find all the links in the episode description. The warblers is produced by investments Jody Allair, Ruth Friendship-Keller and Kate Dolgleish. This episode was edited by Greg McLaughlin and engineered by Katie Zhang, with the music by Jose Mora an art by Alex Nicole... until next time, keep birding