Welcome To Bird City Wisconsin
"Making our communities healthy for birds...and people"

Building Bird Habitat

Click on this flyer to better see how even during the winter a community can meet several of Bird City's recognition criteria -- such as these:

Public Education 
        The community, through bulletin boards, community newsletters, city or county website, or other media, provides
information to property owners on methods to create and enhance backyard habitat for birds. 
          The community has a program that involves schools, garden clubs or other organizations in bird conservation
activities
10 More communities recognized as 'Bird Cities"

Total reaches 39 as conservation project enters 2nd year

Bird City Wisconsin has awarded recognition to 10 additional communities in its collaborative approach to urban bird conservation. The awards bring to 39 the number of cities, villages, towns and counties committed to making their communities a better place for people, birds and other wildlife.

The newest Bird City communities include the cities of Kenosha, Plymouth, Beaver Dam and Mayville; the villages of Ephraim, Fontana, Shorewood Hills, Grantsburg and Sherwood, and the Town of Baileys Harbor. Each will be presented with a special Bird City Wisconsin flag, plaque and street signs at ceremonies to honor their conservation achievements.

BCW coordinator Carl Schwartz said the project was continuing to surpass its goals for growth and had spurred communities statewide to initiate a number of new bird conservation projects. It also has raised the profile of International Migratory Bird Day, celebrated across two continents, including at nearly three dozen public events this spring in Wisconsin.

Modeled on the "Tree City USA" program, Bird City
As part of the City of Beaver Dam's Oct. 1 "Birds in the City" celebration to mark International Migratory Bird Day, the woodshop at the Senior Center constructed and erected this Chimney Swift tower to provide additional nesting habitat for this small insect-eating migratory bird.

 

established 22 criteria across five categories, including habitat creation and protection, community forest management, limiting hazards, public education, and recognizing International Migratory Bird Day. If a community meets at least seven criteria, it becomes an official "Bird City."

-- To see our Jan. 12 news release and for more details on our program, click here.

-- For a look at what each community is doing to benefit birds, click here

-- Bird City will accept a new round of applications through March 1. For more details and to see the Basic Application, click here

-- Bird City also has established procedures for communities to renew their recognition and/or upgrade to "High Flyer" status. To see Online Renewal Applications: Word | PDF

Bird City uses this web site to guide birding enthusiasts, natural landscapers, foresters, parks directors, city planners and others through the process. The project coordinator urges interested residents to contact local officials to encourage them to seek Bird City recognition and then work with them to make it happen. Take advantage of the criteria you already meet and build your application around those.

Questions? Contact BCW Coordinator Carl Schwartz at 414-416-3272 or cschwartz3@wi.rr.com
To see just how each of our communities achieved certification as a "Bird City," click here to view their conservation achievements and the criteria they met.

 

Building Design Guidelines Now Available for Local Co-Branding

New Publication Provides Comprehensive Solutions to Halt Massive Bird Kills From Building Collisions

The cover of the new publication, Bird-Friendly Building Design

As part of a program to reduce the massive and growing number of bird deaths resulting from building collisions in the United States, American Bird Conservancy has produced a new, national publication, American Bird Conservancy’s Bird-Friendly Building Designs.

 

Organizations interested in co-branding this document and including local information and contacts, please email Christine Sheppard, Collisions Program Director, at csheppard@abcbirds.org.

 

 

 

This would be an ideal step to take for communities seeking to meet Bird City Wisconsin's Category 3B criteria on window strikes.

International Migratory Bird Day 2012

International Migratory Bird Day will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2012. Created in 1993, the event is now hosted at over 520 sites throughout the Western Hemisphere -- including dozens in Wisconsin -- reaching hundreds of thousands of youth and adults. As part of the 20th anniversary celebrations, the annual bird conservation theme will focus on 20 ways people may help preserve birds every day. http://birdday.org/

The theme is highlighted in the 2012 art created by Rafael Lopez. The lively piece reflects the joy, curiosity, and beauty of birds, while sharing the importance of community in bird conservation. Check out the final artwork and a very cool video of the actual t-shirt screen printing

Great Backyard Bird Count 2012

As movie-goers watch the stars of "The Big Year" in their quest to count birds, some may be motivated to try the hobby for the first time. The annual Great Backyard Bird Count is the perfect opportunity. It also helps your community qualify to be recognized as a Bird City Wisconsin.

The results provide a snapshot of the whereabouts of more than 600 bird species. 

Anyone can participate in this free event and no registration is needed. Watch and count birds for at least 15 minutes on any day of the count, February 17-20, 2012. Enter your results at www.birdcount.org, where you can watch as the tallies grow across the continent.

The four-day count typically records more than 10 million observations. For more information, go to http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/

Giving Birds What They Need, Where They Need It

Douglas W. Tallamy, author of "Bringing Nature Home - How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants,"  has a message that was fundamental to the creation of Bird City Wisconsin.  In an article prepared for Bird City, Dr. Tallamy writes:

90% of the insects that eat plants (this is the caterpillar stage of the Polyphemus moth) are only able to eat the plants for which they have specialized adaptations.
Birds, such as this Common Yellowthroat, provide critical insect control, because they eat them every single day.

"There is nothing inevitable about the demise of our birds. Their decline is not mysterious.... We know exactly why there are fewer birds each year. Our birds are in trouble because we have not shared our human-dominated spaces with them:  the places in which we live, work, and farm.... What we haven’t thought much about was our ever-expanding human footprint.  Suddenly, we are living, working, farming and mining just about everywhere.... Birds are superb indicator species of ecosystem health. Most are predators, and some are top predators that cannot exist unless a complex food web that creates their food also exists.... If we have disrupted ecosystem function to the point where our birds disappear, we have also threatened our own life support systems."

Too see how you can be part of the solution, read Dr. Tallamy's entire report in the "Best Practices" section of our site (click here).

Mobilizing a coalition

Bird City Wisconsin seeks to mobilize a statewide coalition of citizens and public officials who already know that birds are more than beautiful -- they are significant.

Wisconsin communities that come together to help protect birds – choosing from an array of different bird conservation activities – can receive designation and public recognition as a Bird City Wisconsin.

If you’re one of the 60% percent of Americans who lives in an urban neighborhood, enjoying nature often means watching birds. Urban dwellers may frequently encounter Canada Geese, Ring-billed Gulls, and Mourning Doves, but if they look up in the right places they can also spot Common Nighthawks circling above buildings, Red-tailed Hawks hunting from treetops, and Blue Jays sounding the alarm.

A coalition led by the Milwaukee Audubon Society, the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative and the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology wants to ensure that Wisconsin’s city folk maintain healthy populations of birds and grow an appreciation for them.

With funding from the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin and TogetherGreen, an alliance between the National Audubon Society and Toyota, the program will address an increasing problem: the decline of urban bird populations. Chimney Swift populations in Wisconsin, for example, have declined by more than 2% annually for the last 28 years, while the Purple Martin – which nests in colonial boxes often near water – is declining at three times that rate.

Bird City stresses the economic incentive for communities to practice conservation. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than half of all U.S. adults hunt, fish, bird watch or photograph wildlife, spending a total of $59.5 billion annually.

Birds also are unheralded assistants to backyard gardeners, flower fanciers, private and municipal landscapers, farmers and foresters. Without birds, communities would have to spend far more money keeping natural systems in balance. Insect-eating birds reduce the need for chemical pest control. Birds also are voracious eaters of weed seeds and rodents.

Bird City Wisconsin showcases its recognition with entryway street signs, a flag and a plaque. It makes a strong contribution to community pride and presents the kind of image that most citizens want to have for the place they live, vacation or conduct their business. Bird City trumpets a community's current conservation successes while promoting strategies for coordinated, far-reaching, bird-centered conservation activities.

Video/slide show shows how you can be a Bird City

In a half-hour webinar that combines live video with a Powerpoint slide show, Bird City coordinator Carl Schwartz presents an overview of the program, reports on its early successes and enlists the help of birders, garden clubs, civic groups and other organizations looking for a cause to rally around to celebrate Earth Day or International Migratory Bird Day.  (Click logo below to link)

 Bird City Wisconsin - 1111 E. Brown Deer Road - Bayside, WI 53217 - Phone (414) 416-3272 - Email Us