Activity 1:  Why birds matter to me. My Dad is responsible for fostering my interest in birds. When I was a child, I remember how vigilant he was about keeping the bird feeder well-stocked during the winter, his efforts to keep the neighbor's cat away, and how he would point out the different birds at the feeder by showing me his field guide. To this day, I enjoy when he calls letting me know there's a hawk in the backyard terrorizing the frequent flyers at his birdfeeder. I hope parents realize that by sharing their interests, they can shape the next generation of enthusiasts, whether it be birding or any other hobby.

I've been involved in citizen science related to birding for nearly 20 years.  I started with the Great Backyard Bird Count, then Project Feeder Watch.  I've been using ebird.org for 14 years, but this course introduced me to some of the features of the site that I wasn't as familiar with.  I will be definitely taking the Ebird Essentials free course next. By education I am a plastics engineer, but I am not a fan of plastic bottled water.  I keep a yeti thermos bottle filled with filtered tap water next to me at all times. One tip - the plastic ring holders used on six packs of soda pop are a particular concern for shore birds and marine life.  Take a few seconds and snip the rings with scissors before tossing them in the trash. We have a second floor deck patio door and have experienced bird strikes up close and personal.  (In one case a cardinal hit our door and while stunned a hawk came down and swooped it up.  My wife is still traumatized...)  A web search brought us to the American Bird Conservancy list linked in this lesson.  After researching the list, we opted for the Feather Friendly DIY adhesive dots.  Super easy to install and almost invisible from the inside.  Put them up at the start of this summer, so far no casualties!

Activity 2: I made my entrance into the bird world while watching a Hummingbird build a nest just outside my front door. For the first time I noticed the beautiful Western Tanager on its spring migration through my neighborhood. It's probably done this migration many times before but for once I just sat and listened to the sounds around me and that is how I discovered them. Since that time I have participated in a raptor survey and will do it again next year. I have joined the Audubon Society and participated in a bird walk. I found these courses and plan to take more. I think the greatest thing I am doing right now for birds is sharing what I have learned with friends and family. This has made them more conscious and aware of the birds around them. They too, now look and listen. Once traveling is safe again, my sister and I plan on making a trip out to New York and Sapsucker Woods. In the meantime I will have to be satisfied with watching the live feeder cams!

Activity 1: Birds as an essential species are special because their existence is up close and personal. That is the science of their contribution to the ecosystem is complemented delightedly in their art form - both sight and sound. Are home is enveloped by these sights and sounds which is pleasant and constant reminder of their importance more so than any species that live here on our farm.  This course has only reinforced our observational skills and encouraged us further down the citizen science trail we must stay on. Activity 2: We are reducing or avoiding plastic.  We recover waste plastic on our river shore.  We observe and report what we see on eBird. We participate in an annual Blue Bird nest watch here in Virginia.  We provide feed for are yard birds during harsher months and prior to breeding.  Our cats stay inside and enjoy the birds from the windows. We have installed anti collision products on our windows but need to do more here. Activity 3: The most significant losses over my lifetime here on Waterloo Farm has been the reduction of Quail population or "Bobwhite" and the Whippoorwill. A pair of Bobwhite were heard and observed in 2018 but we believe a window birdstrike at our home took one. A single has been back in 2019 and 2020 calling which may have been a mate. We have allowed old hedgerow sites to regenerate in order to support this species but are not seeing the results of yet.  The Whippoorwill we thought, was heard around 2015 but not since. This species was my best childhood memory, falling asleep in a non-AC, window open house in the hot summer with this lovely singer calling into the night.  A sad loss here. Activity 4: I signed up for the Virginia Breeding Atlas project but have not been a good participant.  This course has stimulated me to get more training on how to observe in breeding season including nesting.

Activity one: I love birds.  They are precious to watch and beautiful.  I know some of the citizen science projects but not all of them.  I didn't know about the bird safe coffee.  I've learned a lot about birds and they're habitats and identification.  I plan to take more birding courses and practice more in the field.

Activity 1: Why do birds matter to you? Has this course changed your thoughts about why birds are important? Post your thoughts in the discussion. I've always loved birds.  They bring joy and beauty to the day.   They are examples of God's artistry.   Of course, the items highlighted in the last section (pollination, seed spreading, serving as notifications of climate issues, cleaning up, etc.) show their added importance.    I hadn't really realized their important role as pollinators and seed spreading.   Yet, even if they didn't do these things, I'd think they were just essential for their sheer beauty, visually and through their song. Activity 2: Think about the Seven Simple Actions to Protect Birds. Which are you already doing? Could you practice any of them more extensively, or start trying more of them? What other actions can you think of that could help birds? Share in the discussion. Prior to the course, I have made an effort to avoid using water in plastic bottles when I could, opting for filters or larger/reusable jugs.  I recycle when possible.   I have done container gardening and didn't quite realize how helpful it could be to the birds.  Yet, today as I was sitting on my balcony and several sparrows sat on the railing near me, I wondered if they were drawn partly by the plants there.   One thing I will probably be more mindful of is coffee and how it is harvested. Activity 3: Have you noticed bird populations changing over your lifetime? Share your observations in the discussion. I moved to a different part of the country when I graduated college.  So I haven't really noticed the changes in birds over a long period because the climate where I live now is slightly warmer.  We get some birds here out East I would never see in the MidWest (such as Eastern Bluebirds).  I do think I see more Eastern Bluebirds (rare that they still are) than I used to 10 years or more ago - which is probably due to some conservation efforts.   This year I have seen more blue jays and cardinals than I recall in prior years - but am not sure if that is a trend or not. Activity 4: What next steps do you want to take in your birdwatching journey? Has this course inspired you to try anything new or make any changes in your life? Share in the discussion. I think I will continue to pay more attention to bird behavior, knowing more about what's behind it.  For example, the other day I saw an unusual site of 7 or so mourning doves on the roof of a nearby building.  I was able to grab my binoculars and saw them preening - which I now know is important for flight.  I am attaching a photo of those birds here.    I also hope to get my cameras in more ready shape - as my phone camera does not do nearly a nice job on the pictures. To be honest, I dragged my feet on finishing this assignment, as it signifies the end of a course that was not only interesting, but a way to keep me busy and engaged during the isolation of COVID-19 restrictions.  It was something to look forward to.  I will probably find another class, and eventually hope to take a class on bird song identification.  Not only has this class helped me to pay more attention to birds, but to other wildlife as well.  (Such as squirrels.)  There is so much in the natural world to learn about and explore, even for someone who has been around for a while!  

It is great to find there are so many ways to participate in Citizen Science, helping birds and adding fun new opportunities. There is The Great Backyard Bird Count which was my introduction to birding. I am looking forward to and the Christmas Bird Count. Project FeederWatch sounds like a wonderful project. That may have to wait for me as I am having a surgery and will be recovering this year. But as a future project definitely! NestWatch sounds a little intimidating to me at the moment. I just came upon Celebrate Urban Birds and that seems like a real adventure. I am inspired to brush up my Spanish. I am regularly submitting checklists with eBird.  That has become the highlight of my day!

Activity 1: Birds are a world to me. I can’t even imagine waking up one morning and not hearing or seeing House Sparrows around. Everything in this world is connected. Knowing your neighbors is important. Birds can show if there are ecological problems around you. I feel we need more trees in our neighborhood, because the bird variety is poor. I’ve always wanted to expand my knowledge about these feathery creatures. Bird watching is so much fun! Activity 2: Just talking about birds, sharing books, pictures, videos or your personal observations can make others more bird conscious. From the seven actions there’s one I haven’t done yet – finding shade-grown coffee. I never thought of how coffee is grown until this course and I’m glad I can use my knowledge to help birds and be rewarded with delicious coffee. Activity 3: I think there are fewer birds in the cities than 10 years ago. From what I’ve read we are to blame. New building designs don’t allow nest building; only one type of grass seed used in city parks and lawns provides poor seed and insect diet for birds; there are less green areas and parks for birds to live, which also provides poor ecological environment for us. Activity 4: I’d like to know more about bird seasonal and gender behaviors, their feather color changes. Knowing about bird flight patterns and songs would make it easier for me to identify them. I really want to go to different parts of the country to see all the variety of birds I found in the books and applications. I even started a bird painting course that will help me to be more observant and notice more details in bird shapes, coloration and behaviors. I also signed up for the course Ornithology: Comprehensive Bird Biology. I'm really grateful for this course! Feels like a nice start of a great journey!

Activity 1: Birds are awe inspiring and inspirational. A testament to observation and exploration. Birds have always given me a sense of time and place and I value their presence in the world very much. Activity 2: I am guilty of owning a keurig coffee system. It does have a side compartment for making pots of coffee - so I should be keeping an eye open for bird friendly coffee. I also want to limit my use of single use plastics, however with growing demand for personal protective equipment in the form of masks and gloves - I fear 2020 may set us back years in reducing single use plastics. Activity 3: I haven't noticed a sharp decline in bird populations in my lifetime. When I was a kid I volunteered in a peregrine falcon recovery effort and it seems like peregrine falcons have made a come back as mentioned in the raptors section of this unit. Activity 4: This course has inspired me! I would like to start a birdwatching group called "The Thousand Islands Birdwatchers Association." Would love some guidance or next steps in order to properly register this association! I'd also like to invest in a nice set of binoculars and a good camera with a proper telephoto lens. I've already picked up a Stokes field guide and a Peterson field guide. :)  

Loved these birds by the water.

Activity 2: Of the 7 Simple Actions, I am already doing these: 1.Use native plants:  In my backyard gardens I have added more native plants, and am trying to learn about more of them that also might do well in our local conditions. After taking this course, I am more conscious of how plantings can also help to support bird life. 2.Avoid pesticides:  never use them 3.Reduce plastic use:  Yes, reduce, re-use, recycle, as much as possible. Mostly try to reduce wherever I can. What I will try to do: 1.Drink shade-grown coffee:  I have been vaguely aware of these labels on coffee brands, but will look for them now. 2.Do citizen science:  I hope to become an active participant -- This course has been such a wonderful introduction!  I have made my first few entries to eBird, but certainly need to get more confident and establish connections that will help me to do so. Another action to take is to let others know about the 7 Simple Actions.

Activity 1: Birds matter because they are essential parts of their environments. They are both predator and prey, they pollinate, fertilize, disperse seed. They have roles that surely we don’t fully understand. Their songs lift us up. Their flights and migrations inspire and amaze. I associate certain bird songs, calls and sightings with particular events that bring good memories when I hear or see them again. The endangerment or disappearance of birds remind me that I need to do a better job in  my own way of improving the health of the earth.

The 2020 Great Backyard Bird Count started my bird watching.  I received an email about it and felt this was something we just had to do. At first eBird and Merlin a bit confusing but now are everyday essentials. My interest continued thanks to a mystery bird that sang every morning right outside my window. I started every day saying who is that bird! I would go to work and talk about this to my coworker and sing the call. Finally one day I could show him a picture in Merlin of the Dark-eyed Junko and play the exact song I had been singing. Now my husband and I sit outside every evening and watch birds. I am recovering from surgery and this has helped me connect to the outdoors. I think the birds recognize us and they come up on the deck to say hello. It will be great when I can go to different locations to bird watch. Another goal is to add more native plants to our yard to make a better habitat. Starting a journal is another plan. There are lots of observations like why did we not have Mockingbirds here this year or noticing that the Quail visit different locations in the neighborhood that can be noted. Our coffee is organic and fair trade but there is a whole lot more to know about how coffee is grown. A brief search brought up articles from The Cornell Lab, Smithsonian Institution, National Audubon Society and more. This is just the beginning of a really interesting, enjoyable and planet positive   new direction. Thank you!

The biggest change I have noticed is the number of birds that remained in my area this winter.  Cedar waxwings, Goldfinches and even Bluebirds stayed through the winter, something I haven't seen before.  Here is a photo of the bluebird I saw on my deck in December this past winter.

I am glad to have a yard full of many native species and plantings that offer excellent habitat for birds and many insects. Right now I have species such as service berry, vibernum, red twig dogwood, asters, oaks, eastern red cedar and more. I am hoping to add to this collection this fall based on the suggestions from this class. My hope is to add Rhododendron periclymenoides, narrow-leaf mountain mint, wand panic grass, and either a poosum-haw or a Southern arrowwood. We also have a local arnoretum that has a native plant sale every spring and fall. I will try to aquire my plants from them. While taking this class,I have become aware of the vast bird population that visits my yard. The native plants are working even better than I realized! Hooray.

Activity 1 & 4:  I love watching birds, therefore we have various different feeders in our garden, seed feeders, nectar feeders and a fruit table. We also have a bird bath which we clean out regularly, it is lovely to watch the Cape Robins, Olive Thrush and Bul buls taking a bath. I took part on the 12 May in Ebird global count day and since then I have become pretty addicted to watching birds, I have decided to buy myself a DSLR Camera, in order to be able to take close up photographs of birds. Thank you for giving me this new found inspiration to observe birds even more closely than I did before, everytime I hear a bird I look up to try and spot it, I am now able to identify at least 6 birds by hearing their song or call.

Activity 1: Bird matter to me because I love spending time with animals and in nature. Bird make these even more fun as they can be seen often. There are so many different bird species in many different colors and sizes. Seeing them always makes me happy whether I see hummingbird or a bald eagle or anything in between. I never thought about why birds really are important, but now that I have taken the course, I can see how they impact humans. Thank you for making this wonderful course about bird watching!

I enjoyed this course and may go through it again!  I have downloaded eBird and will use it the next time I go birding.  I also want to  plant some native plants in my yard that will attract birds, especially hummingbirds. and will look for shade-grown coffee the next time I go shopping.  Thank you for an interesting, informative course.

Activity 1: Birds matter to me because it is one of my favorite hobbies in the morning. Watching birds call, sing, fly around, forage and recognizing them for bird conservation effort is a very meaningful activity. Birds are very important as they serve as scavengers that clean up the environment, and prevent the spread of communicable diseases. They also help pollinate flowers in Canada, so we have abundant food to eat. They can sense climate change earlier than we do, so we should help protect their habitats. I sure do not want the bird watching activity to be over. This world would be boring and dull without any bird watching activity. Activity 2: I try to use less plastic as it generates harmful materials that choke birds. I also participate in a citizen science project, such as eBird, to record virtually the number of bird species I see in the nearby parks. This is to help bird protection and environmental conservation. Other things to help birds is to understand what the city of Edmonton or Calgary is using to clear weeds (e.g. dandelions) in the summer. This is to better understand if any harmful weed killers are used that can pollute soil, ground water and vegetation (e.g. edible crops, trees and flowers) that the birds and humans rely on for food and habitat. Harmful pesticides may cause adverse health effects both birds and humans if consumed in certain amount and for a period of time.

Activity #1 what makes birds matter to me is that they are such an important part of of our planet’s ecosystem and are some of the most interesting creatures that we are able to see on an almost everyday basis. The differences between species are what makes them so interesting, whether it’s their songs or the ways they care for their young.I’ve really enjoyed this course.

Activity 1: Birds matter to me because they are incredible animals, and when you bird watch, you feel so many incredible emotions such as curiosity when you spot a new bird, surprise and/or wonder when you see it and identify it, and joy when you see how far you've come from seeing and identifying your first bird. This course taught me so many different things about birds and some bird species that I had no idea about, and now I know exactly why we have to protect birds today.--------Activity 2: Out of the seven actions, my family and I are currently doing 3: we buy shade-grown coffee when we have the chance, we try to use less plastic, and we do Citizen Science (we use eBird). When we had a garden, we didn't use pesticides, and we used bird-friendly plants, although we aren't really sure if they were all native. Right now, these actions are the only ones we can take, and after this course, we will try our best to do more to protect birds. I also told my friends about the Seven Simple Actions to Protect Birds, and that is another action that will help protect birds; if more people know about the actions, more people will apply them, and the more people that apply them, the more birds that are protected.-------Activity 3: My lifetime has been short, so I haven't seen any big changes in bird populations.--------Activity 4: After doing this course, my family and I want to buy a new pair of 10x42 binoculars and eventually a spotting scope. I want to take the Photography Course by Melissa Groo to see if I can take better and more advanced photos of birds, and, of course, my family and I will try our best to implement the Seven Simple Actions to Protect Birds. This course has been so informative and fun!

Helping Birds in my world Activity 1 & 4 Why do birds matter to me?  And what’s next? I studied Physics in school and went to work in the Semiconductor Field after graduate school.  I read thousands of journal articles during my career and every issue of the 50 years or so of National Geographic that came to my various homes, but very little fiction.  Birds were an incidental part of my perennial interest in all of nature and how it all works together.  As a child I was a hunter gatherer, turning over rocks and sticks and logs looking for the creatures that lived in the earth and trees and waters that were around me in my hometown of Worcester MA. At various times I had collections of snakes and turtles and frogs and salamanders and crickets.  Birds tended to be uncatchable so the only birds I had close contact with were Tweety I and Tweety II.  They were parakeets that lived in my childhood home.  Tweety I and Tweety II were indistinguishable visually but as different as can be in personality.  It made me realize that behavioral norms must be quite variable even within the thousands of species of birds that remained free of my menagerie studies. Audubon, Roger Tory Petersen and The National Geographic were my reference manuals for the free to roam world of birds.   Last year in the middle of several medical and physical complications I gave myself a birthday present of a high quality 40-150mm zoom lens with a 2X tele-extender.   That brought the free roaming birds into my hands in much finer detail and in living brilliant color.  While I can’t touch them, I can collect their images and observe their behavior in my smaller range of motion.  The tools I learned from this course also helped me understand what to look for and what might be next for the visitors who shared my long distance detailed observations.  Despite the physical separation from my grandchildren in this crazy Covid-19 world, I have found that sharing my images with them has been a way to interest them in the world around them and have a new topic beyond dinner and playtime games and their new pool or new school explorations. Meanwhile, I moved back to MA last week and discovered several of my friendly Florida birds were well adjusted here in MA before me.  In and around the pond in my back yard yesterday I was greeted by several of the same species I had just said goodbye to in FL.  There were three great egrets along the near side of the pond along with a pair of mallard females and a little blue heron.  I notice a flash of white on the other side of the pond and it turned out to be a black crowned night heron.  For good luck a redwing black bird cam by and perched on a long strand of grass.  He sang his melodic song and set me up for my next course of identifying birds by their songs and sounds.  I will love birds going forward and have learned new tools in this course.  I am looking forward to going out on my back porch  (Massachusetts) and my lanai (Florida) and being able to picture the birds who are singing to me even when I can’t see them.