For the Birds

By Charles P. Alexander

New York City's Central Park may be surrounded by skyscrapers and enveloped in smog, but it is still a paradise for bird watchers. The May migration brings flocks of exotic species to this urban oasis--avian counterparts to the out-of-towners who crowd Times Square and Broadway. The high point is "Warbler Week," the perfect time for 15 bird lovers from the National Audubon Society to go on an early-morning expedition with David Allen Sibley, 39, author of the best-selling Sibley Guide to Birds (Knopf; $35) and, since the death of Roger Tory Peterson five years ago, America's most famous birder.

Leading the troop down from Belvedere Castle into the wooded area known as the Ramble, Sibley points out one species after another--sometimes faster than a reporter can jot down their names. He identifies birds by their song even before he spots them and is constantly chirping himself: "There's a wood thrush hopping across that rock...Here's a little parade of yellow-rumped warblers and white-throated sparrows...There are black-throated blue warblers singing all around us."

In less than two hours, Sibley heard or saw at least 30 species. And almost as plentiful as the birds were the bird watchers--thanks in part to Sibley. His Guide, with 500,000 copies in print since it was published last October, has become the fastest-selling bird book in history. Its 6,600 paintings (all by Sibley) and clear, descriptive text are attracting fresh recruits to birding all across the U.S.

Birders, depending on which survey you believe, now number somewhere between 50 million and 70 million, and for many of them bird watching has become less a hobby than a religion. Dedicated birders travel around the world to find rare varieties and compete in dawn-to-dusk "birdathons" to see who can spot the most species in a single day. Veterans keep "life lists" that number in the thousands.

But the joy of birding is increasingly tinged with anxiety--especially with George W. Bush in the White House. Too many species are becoming harder and harder to find. Birds that thrive in human habitats--pigeons, starlings, robins--are doing just fine. But some 15% of the 800 species that live in or pass through North America are in serious decline. "I used to see American tree sparrows by the hundreds in the Northeast," Sibley says. "Now they are very rare." Others on his growing worry list include the bobolink, the upland sandpiper and the loggerhead shrike.

More is at stake than a few loggerhead shrikes. Like the proverbial canary in a coal mine, birds have long been leading indicators of the health of an ecosystem. In the book that gave birth to the modern environmental movement, Silent Spring (1962), Rachel Carson used the plight of bald eagles and other birds to dramatize the dangers of pesticides. Contaminated by DDT, some species were laying eggs with shells so thin that chicks died and populations plummeted. Public concern led to a U.S. ban on the most hazardous chemicals, including ddt, and intensive conservation efforts saved the bald eagle and California condor from extinction.

Then why are so many species still failing? Some of them may be picking up DDT on their migratory trips to South America, where the pesticide is still used, and some chemicals remaining on the U.S. market may be hazardous. But the main culprit seems to be something much more difficult to deal with: relentless urban sprawl and the concomitant destruction of bird habitat. "I'll go to places where I used to see interesting birds," says Sibley. "Now I'll see nothing but shopping malls." Growing up in suburban Connecticut, he recalls, he could always find a vacant lot full of birds. Such open spaces are becoming few and far between. "It's discouraging," he says, "to see this steady whittling away of habitat, one lot at a time."

The birds can still be saved, Sibley believes, if the millions of bird watchers band together to become a political force for conservation. At the moment, they're not all model environmentalists, not by any definition. Sibley points out that many birders think nothing of driving 400 miles on a weekend, burning gas and polluting the sky all the way, to add one more bird to their life list.

The most important thing bird lovers can do, he says, is create bird habitats in their own backyards. The typical suburban lawn is a pretty sterile place, doused in chemicals to kill the insects that birds feed on. Birds like cover and an undergrowth teeming with bugs. Sibley suggests planting more shrubs and trees and letting at least part of a lawn go completely wild.

Birders can also speak out more about habitat destruction, something Sibley intends to do. "I've seen this responsibility now," he says. "I shouldn't shirk it."His current best seller has only a brief section on threats to birds, but he will have much more to say in a new book due out in October, the Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, which he edited with Chris Elphick and John B. Dunning Jr. "The primary causes of species declines in North America," the book asserts, "are almost exclusively direct or indirect consequences of human actions."

Environmental groups, meanwhile, are busily trying to stir up bird watchers on the Internet. A link on the National Audubon Society's website www.audubon.org takes visitors to protectthearctic.com which helps people tell their representatives in Congress, by e-mail, fax or letter, that they don't want oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other parts of the new Bush energy plan come under attack at the Audubon site as well. Says Audubon president John Flicker: "The energy policy encourages the blowing off of mountaintops in West Virginia, destroying endangered cerulean warbler habitat for a small amount of coal."

The American Bird Conservancy, with a policy council composed of 85 organizations, has launched a campaign to protect birds from 50 pesticides still on the market. Its website is urging birders to write the Environmental Protection Agency and press the agency to ban fenthion, a particularly dangerous chemical used to kill mosquitoes in Florida.

Business is pitching in too. Wild Birds Unlimited, a chain that sells birdseed, feeders, binoculars and other birding gear, has joined with the National Wildlife Federation to sponsor a Habitat Stewards program that teaches people how to turn their backyards into wildlife refuges. N.W.F. president Mark Van Putten notes that birders are one of the biggest groups in his membership. "They are only beginning to be mobilized," he says. "They could be a real force."

The next generation of birders could be an even stronger one. "Everywhere I go," says Sibley, "I meet or hear about some eight-year-old who's obsessed with birds." And eight-year-old environmentalists, as many a parent can attest, are natural activists, ready to do whatever it takes to save the planet.

One of the wide-eyed followers on Sibley's Central Park jaunt was Miranda Holman, 11, who has been birding since she was eight. When she shyly approached Sibley for an autograph, he asked her to name her favorite bird. "The scarlet tanager," she quickly replied, whereupon the artist sketched a Sibley original of the forest dweller on her notepad. Miranda has seen only one scarlet tanager in her life, but if bird watchers can get their conservation act together, she may see many more.