Hillarie O'Toole | August 7, 2024

The numbers tell a grim story: over one billion birds die each year in the US due to building collisions. But it is through individual stories that we can begin to understand the “butterfly” effect that the loss of just one bird can have on the ecological community. Just one White-throated Sparrow's death has an effect on the environment.

Carol Peace Robins | March 5, 2024 

The 124th Annual Christmas Bird Count, which took place on December 17, 2023, was a historic one for NYC Bird Alliance. Not only did we have a record 400 registered volunteer counters, but for the first time in the Count's history, a green roof was included in the festivities. Carol Peace Robins recounts the historic day at Hudson Yards. 

Olivia Liang | December 4, 2023

Winston Qin is a gifted photographer, an aspiring engineer, a lifelong bird enthusiast, a Project Safe Flight volunteer… and a high school senior. Meet this exceptional teenager devoted to protecting our City’s wild birds. 

Olivia Liang | November 10, 2023

"We understand that the New York we’re in today is not the New York we all grew up in. What is our responsibility?"

A Q&A with NYC Bird Alliance’s new Director of Advocacy and Engagement, Saman Mahmood. 

Project Safe Flight Unwrapped: Fall 2022
Katherine Chen | February 27, 2023: 
Results are in from the Fall 2022 Project Safe Flight season, the 26th year of our signature community science research program studying bird collisions in NYC. See key findings from this season, which saw record volunteer participation and coverage of all five boroughs for the first time in the program's history. 

Phil Roosevelt | February 27, 2023: 
NYC Bird Alliance's passionate volunteer corps has sustained its conservation work for over 40 years. Meet Audubon Christmas Bird Count surveyor Junko Suzuki.

Lauren Klingsberg | February 27, 2023:
Since Marcia T. Fowle joined NYC Bird Alliance as its first executive director in 1992, she's supported the organization in too many additional ways to count, including roles as president of the board of directors, longtime co-editor of The Urban Audubon, and co-chair of both the advisory council and Fall Roost committee. Learn about Marcia's many contributions to our organization as we wish her and her husband, bird-friendly architect and longtime NYC Bird Alliance supporter Bruce Fowle, a happy move to their new home in Vermont. 

Katherine Chen | December 23, 2022
Thank you to all who joined NYC Bird Alliance for the 123rd Annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count on December 18. It was an extraordinary Sunday, with over 200 community scientists fanning out across Manhattan and Northern New Jersey for bird surveys at 35 different locations—seven within Central Park alone! While we are still sifting through the data from all our counts, we are sharing some initial highlights reported by volunteer counters. 

Katherine Chen and Dustin Partridge, PhD | Sep 18, 2022
The Tribute in Light is a stirring and fitting reminder of the tragic events of 9/11, but it can also be a hazard for thousands of migratory birds that travel through the City at night; birds can get trapped in the beams of light and become disoriented, making them more likely to suffer collisions with buildings. For the 21st consecutive year, last weekend NYC Bird Alliance was stationed at the Tribute from dusk to dawn in partnership with 9/11 Memorial & Museum to make sure this touching memorial did not unnecessarily harm birds, as well as further our research on artificial light's effects on birds.

Aurora Crooks | Feb 1, 2022: 
Over 170 community scientists took to parks and green spaces in the New Jersey Lower Hudson area as part of the 122nd Annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count on December 19, 2021. We found 27,269 birds and 98 different species that day. See all the species that were counted, highlights from the day, and more in our Christmas Bird Count recap blog post by Aurora Crooks.

Aurora Crooks | Jan 17, 2022: 
Results from the Fall 2021 Project Safe Flight season, the 25th year of our signature community science research program studying bird collisions in NYC, are in! See key findings from the season, which saw a record 1,120 birds reported by volunteers, in our Fall 2021 Project Safe Flight recap. 

Suzanne Charlé | Sep 7, 2021: 
Learn about this past spring's successful effort to reduce songbird deaths at the World Trade Center's Liberty Park.

Kaitlyn Parkins | Feb 5, 2022
The 121st Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC), a single-day bird census held at thousands of locations across the Western Hemisphere, looked quite different in 2020. To keep everyone safe, National Audubon supported compilers who chose to cancel their counts due to the coronavirus pandemic and provided guidance to those who decided to proceed. In lieu of hosting our large CBC events, our 2020 count involved a smaller number of seasoned volunteers who collected data while wearing masks and remaining socially distanced. While we missed seeing volunteers and enjoying hot soup at the Arsenal after a cold morning of birding, our count’s data did not suffer from the restrictions.

Aurora Crooks | Jan 15, 2020
Despite difficult and uncertain circumstances this fall, Project Safe Flight continued forward in its efforts to study bird collisions throughout our city. This community science project, now in its 24th year, relies on the efforts of volunteers, who wake up at the crack of dawn from the start of September through mid-November to monitor select routes in our city for birds that have collided with buildings. This fall, 28 enterprising volunteers monitored 6 different routes throughout the city and reported 403 bird collisions—more than double the amount found in fall 2019. Learn about other initial findings from the Fall 2020 Project Safe Flight season

On the 19th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, four beams of light shone into the sky in memorial of those whose lives were tragically lost on that day. Two of those beams were at the Tribute in Light Memorial in New York City, representing the Twin Towers. Two new Tributes also brightened the sky this year: one in Shanksville, PA, memorializing the heroes on board Flight 93, and one at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. In addition to monitoring the tribute in New York City this year, NYC Bird Alliance staff and our colleagues at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology provided resources and advice to the organizations and individuals monitoring the other two sites. The new installations presented us with a valuable research opportunity, as the sites are each unique in terms of location, migration density, and environmental variables. Our hope is to use data collected at all three sites to learn more about the effect of artificial light on bird behavior and how these other factors play a role.

During spring and fall migration, millions of birds migrate through New York City. Unfortunately many will not survive our city's maze of concrete and glass. NYC Bird Alliance's Project Safe Flight estimates between 90,000-230,000 birds die each year in New York City as a result of colliding with windows. With your help, some window collision victims can survive.

February, the third and final month of winter, is often ushered by freezing wind, snow, and bitter cold. On one night this February, the NYC Bird Alliance office was a lively refuge from the cold of February—filled with warmth, drinks, banter and hearty laughter, and spreads upon spreads of meals. But for what occasion? On February 12th of this year, Charles Darwin would have turned 211 years young. In honor of him and his achievements, we invited our community scientists who continue to contribute to scientific advancements to a “Darwin Day” potluck party at our office.   

This year, 109 community science volunteers took to the park on December 15th for the 120th Audubon Christmas Bird Count and recorded significantly more birds than they did during that inaugural count. They recorded 5,148 birds of 57 species in total. Despite some notable misses such as Black-capped Chickadee (this bird hasn’t been a complete miss on the Central Park Count since at least 1993), both the total number of birds and species falls well within the 20-year average for the park. Highlights included Green-winged Teal (last counted in 2013), Turkey Vulture (last counted 2009), and Red-headed Woodpecker (last counted 2011). 

Each year on the evening of September 11th, NYC Bird Alliance staff, board members, and volunteers make their way to the Battery Parking Garage in lower Manhattan, where 88 high-powered spotlights are assembled on top of its roof to create the Tribute in Light Memorial. Throughout the night our team of community science volunteers keep watch, methodically counting the number of birds in the light beams every 20 minutes from 8 p.m. on September 11th to 6 a.m. on September 12th. 

On Sunday, December 16, intrepid birders braved heavy winds and pouring rain to participate in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the New Jersey-Lower Hudson (NJLH) count circle. The NJLH count circle is centered in the Hudson River, and its 15-mile radius includes Manhattan, Bergen and Hudson counties in New Jersey, and a portion of Queens. NYC Bird Alliance organized the 119th annual Central Park Audubon Christmas Bird Count, along with our partners NYC Parks, the Urban Park Rangers, and the Central Park Conservancy. Undaunted by the weather, 59 participants joined us in the park for this annual community science project, which welcomes birders of all skill levels. Through foggy binoculars, they recorded 5,323 birds of 57 species. Most notable were the three species of owl—Northern Saw-whet, Great Horned, and Barred—all found within fifty yards of each other. The rain also kept the hawks grounded, making it easier to ensure that we did not double-count them.

This summer NYC Bird Alliance reached a milestone—10 years of Horseshoe Crab spawning surveys in Jamaica Bay! During the full and new moons in May and June, NYC Bird Alliance conservation staff and dedicated volunteers ventured out at night to count and tag spawning Horseshoe Crabs, a critical food source for shorebirds like the threatened Red Knot. Nearly 200 community scientists braved the unpredictable weather and late nights to help with monitoring at Jamaica Bay this year, including groups from Patagonia, the Metropolitan Society of Natural Historians, P.S. 9 Teunis G Bergen, and the Trinity School. Our Horseshoe Crab monitoring and tagging efforts are part of a larger project run by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Cornell University Cooperative Extension.   

On September 11, two powerful beams of light once again projected more than four miles into the night sky from Lower Manhattan. Known as the Tribute in Light, this annual light installation beautifully honors the thousands of lives lost on September 11, 2001. The Tribute is a stirring and fitting reminder of the tragic events of 9/11, but it can also be a hazard for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds that travel through the city under the cover of darkness during their fall migrations. Birds are attracted to light, and can end up trapped in the Tribute’s powerful beams—circling, calling, and wasting precious body fat that fuels their migratory flight.

The 118th annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for the New Jersey Lower Hudson (NJLH) count circle took place on Sunday, December 17. Our count circle is centered in the Hudson River, and its 15-mile radius includes Manhattan, Bergen and Hudson counties in New Jersey, and a portion of Queens. We were treated to a lovely mild winter day—and many interesting sightings!