Jack Greene knows a unique fact about just about any bird you can name or see. He also has more than 100 bird songs memorized, and can convincingly mimic quite a few of them.
That’s what comes from spending 60 years as a birder.
“Once you get hooked, wherever you go there are birds,” the vice president for the Bridgerland Audubon Society recently told me. “Whatever time of year — winter, summer, fall, spring — and whatever continent you’re on, you’re going to have birds.”
That’s been the case for as long as birds and humans have coexisted. But it might not be the case forever.
With Utah’s rapidly changing and unpredictable climate, now — more than ever — it is important that we start giving more consideration to our avian neighbors. One way to do this is by volunteering for one of the many organizations, like Bridgerland, that support citizen science initiatives to track and count birds all over our state. Then, as you get to know birds, you become attached to their well-being and the habitats they call home.
I was “bird blind” until earlier this year when I began spending my days with the migratory birds at the Great Salt Lake to document what is happening to them as the lake recedes. That’s how Greene, who is 80 years old, spends many of his days, too.
Once you get to know birds and come to adore them, you want to see them healthy and thriving. That’s what happened to Matt Whitaker, a lecturer at Utah State University who teaches environmental literature and writing. Whitaker — whose primary interaction with birds early in his life involved hunting them — had his bird enlightenment on a trip with birder friends to see sharp-tailed grouse in Nebraska.
On spring mornings, male grouse can be found dancing for the females on open display grounds called leks — stamping their feet seemingly as fast as hummingbird wings. Having witnessed this, it was clear to Whitaker that birds are thoughtful and sentient — that they have communication and culture just like humans.
But you don’t have to travel far to have a realization like this. Whitaker said he tries to introduce the activity of birding to his students in his “Reading and Writing the Environment” course through taking them on a birding expedition on campus during class.
Birding is one of the most sustainable outdoor activities you can participate in — especially if you do it near where you live. And anyone who spends time observing the birds in their lives can participate in citizen science by submitting their sightings to eBird — a global online birding database that is part of Cornell Lab’s citizen science program.
The data is used for actual research. And participants get to play a fun, interactive collecting game on an app on their phone. Similarly, Merlin Bird ID, made by the same lab, listens to the birds around you and identifies them by song.
Anybody can bird.
Volunteering time to identify birds and educating others about them is exactly how Sierra Hastings, the communications specialist for Sageland Collaborative — a nonprofit organization that collects data and develops strategies for Utah conservation — came out of her “bird blindness.”
Before Hastings’ first volunteer experience as a naturalist at Silver Lake with the Cottonwood Canyons Foundation, she actually had a fear of birds. Being around birders and bird lovers through her volunteer position quickly changed her mind.
In August, Hastings and I both participated in Sageland Collaborative’s fall Intermountain West Shorebird Survey. This was the second time I volunteered for this initiative, which is designed to provide scientists and decision makers the data they need on birds that migrate through Utah.
More than 100 individuals counted 295,088 shorebirds across Utah in a single day. Sageland Collaborative relies on these volunteers. And the organization has a wide range of projects and positions available for people to get involved with wildlife conservation.
“It feels like we’re at this tipping point, where there’s so much awareness about where the climate is that you can either become apathetic toward it, or you can really embrace it and find ways you can get involved and make a difference,” Hastings said.
The easiest way to steer clear of climate indifference is by appreciating nature, she said. Volunteering was the first step to deep appreciation for both of us.
“You don’t have to be an expert in this field by any means,” Hastings said. “I did not go to school for this. I just started to open my eyes and look around and appreciate the noise of nature and the sounds and stillness.”
You can, too.
Clarissa Casper
Clarissa Casper is a journalist and creative writer based in northern Utah.
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