“Welcome To Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods With Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, And Other Wildlife”

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• Great Diversity Of Birds Is Found In Urban, Suburb Areas, Author Says

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  One of Wisconsin’s greatest attributes is the opportunities to see wildlife and engage in birdwatching.

  There are many avid birders that go out of their way to see these beautiful creatures, but imagine a world in which a look out the window could provide just as much species variety as a birding hotspot. According to author John Marzluff, it’s not too far from the truth.

  Marzluff is the author of a recently published book titled, “Welcome To Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods With Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, And Other Wildlife.” His research has found urban areas can yield a greater variety of birds than the wilderness areas.

  Marzluff said the diversity of birds “didn’t just increase as you got into wilder and more woody places, but instead, it actually peaked in the suburbs and that’s where the greatest richness of birds was found.” He surveyed birds in the heart of the city, the suburbs and the wilder surrounding areas.

  One of the reasons this diversity occurs is due to the varying habitats that exist in suburbia, Marzluff said.

  “You have some parks and forest remnants, you’ve got some open areas, you’ve got retention ponds for runoff and lots of different settings and each of those holds a somewhat different set of birds,” he said.

  Cities and wildlands have less variety and therefore can house limited bird species.

  “In comparison, in the heart of the city, it’s more uniformly developed or in the wildlands, it’s more uniformly forested so you get a decline in diversity of bids in those more simple conditions,” he said.

  Although not all birds are able to live with people, the ones that can are very adaptable, he said.

  “Those that live with us, they’re more tolerant of our actions. They are quick to adapt to the things we put out there like food or novel nesting places or novel sorts of plants that we put in the environment. And those birds that are able to adapt to those are the ones that really survive with us,” Marzluff said.

  In order to keep them coming around, it will take an effort from us as people who really have significant power to create a safe and nourishing environment for wildlife, he said.

  “I think there’s a lot we can do, again keeping in mind that our land harbors a diverse community of birds and how can we sustain that in the future as other lands around us are changing rapidly,” he said.

  He has also compiled a list of nine principles that will help to conserve birds and other wildlife in urban areas.