urban nature Archives - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
Things to do

Lisa S. French

2-minute read

With feelings of awe and maybe a little envy, we marvel at our avian friends’ ability to take to the skies without a plane ticket. For one hundred years, scientists have studied the origins of bird flight to determine how feathered creatures evolved to achieve the capacity for lift-off. We now have a pretty good idea that the reptilian animals that ultimately developed into what we recognize as birds started on Earth 160 million years ago as ground-up, running flappers rather than tree-down gliders. What the aerial wonders didn’t anticipate when they successfully tested their wings was the eventual addition of flight path impediments otherwise known as buildings.

According to the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, every year, between 365 and 988 million birds are killed because of building collisions. It seems only fair, now that birds have done the evolutionary heavy lifting of learning to fly, we do what we can to keep them in the air. While we can’t eliminate built structures, we can make them safer for our favorite fliers thanks to innovative solutions pioneered by conservationists at the Audubon.

Creating Bird-Friendly Skies
To help the billions of birds that migrate every spring and fall steer clear of the artificial light and skyglow from buildings that lead to collisions, Audubon has initiated Lights Out, a national effort to turn off unnecessary lights during hours they are likely to attract night travelers. Working with building owners, managers, and residents—people like you—the Lights Out program aims to reduce avian mortality rates by preventing birds from becoming confused by artificial light sources and colliding with windows and walls in the path of flyways.

Keeping it dark by implementing Audubon’s simple, inexpensive solutions can enable migrating and nocturnal species to safely make their way to wintering and breeding grounds, with the cost-cutting, planet-cooling bonus of reducing energy use. Find out what you can do to help create bird-friendly skies right here.

ICYMI Nature News

Awe-Inspiring Avian Beauty
If you need a striking visual reminder of avian beauty, wildlife photographer Rachel Bigsby captures the beautiful essence of bird life in her award-winning photographs. See her work here.

Blue Whales Are Back
Good news for the recovery of the world’s largest animal—the blue whale. According to Antarctic researchers, after two decades of monitoring the Southern Ocean for the majestic mammals’ distinctive songs, there are encouraging signs that blue whales are making a comeback after centuries of industrial whaling. Where does one apply to get a job as a whale listener?

What’s a Kowari, Anyway?
Odds are you’ve never seen a kowari, but Australian conservationists are hoping to save the endangered, brush-tailed cousin of the Tasmanian Devil from extinction, so you’ll get your chance. Meet the mini marsupial.

Orangutan Heal Thyself
For the first time in the wild, an oh-so-clever orangutan has been observed treating a facial wound with a medicinal plant after a dust-up with another male. No urgi-care for this smart fellow.

Just How Noisy Are Cicadas?
You might imagine that millions of cicadas would be pretty darn noisy. But how noisy? Noisy enough to report them to the police apparently. Officer, what in the heckin’ heck is that racket?

Blue Rock Thrush Makes an Unprecedented Pit Stop in the U.S.
In what may be the first-ever sighting in the U.S., a very rare, very pretty, little blue rock thrush has been captured on film by an amateur photographer in Oregon—peak birdwatcher’s envy.

Aquatic Bumblebees
Scientists have learned that the queens of a common species of North American bumblebee can survive up to a week underwater during hibernation. Super adaptable scuba bees!

Natural Magic
And finally, if you love poetry and you love science, have we got a book for you. Natural Magic—Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science by Renée Bergland, illuminates the parallels in the thinking of two keenly original observers of the natural world.

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Lisa S. French May 7, 2024

Pining for Clean Air in Cities

2-minute read

Something unusual happened in New York City last week—the skyline disappeared. Plumes of smoke emanating from the hundreds of wildfires blazing across Canada’s boreal forest descended over the Eastern seaboard, and in just a few hours, Manhattan’s skyscrapers faded out, obscured by an eerie orange haze. As visibility plummeted, so did air quality, topping out at a hazardous to everyone 352 on the U.S. Air Quality Index (AQI). The particle pollution generated from wildfires that made it hard to see also made it difficult and dangerous to breathe.

While the air quality in NYC and other East Coast urban areas returned to a healthier range this week, city residents learned firsthand that you don’t have to be a forest inhabitant to experience the life-disrupting impacts of extreme wildfires. As the planet heats up and the number and intensity of wildfires continue to increase, scientists are exploring options to remove particulate matter and other pollutants from the air in high-population areas. One nature-based solution that both cleans and cools the air in cities and improves overall health and well-being: more green space.

If Orange is the New Blue, is Green the New Black?
Environmental scientists have concluded that planting trees is one of the most effective ways to remove heat-trapping CO2 from the atmosphere. New research has shown that leafy green sky vacuums are also absolute champs at filtering particle pollution that accumulates in high-density urban areas and is hazardous to human health. Researchers studying the absorption capacity of diverse types of trees found that while many species are effective air purifiers, one type, in particular, is good at absorbing particulates—pines.

Studies comparing the needles of evergreen pine trees to the leaves of seasonally shedding trees, including birch, poplar, beech, and ash trees, show that pine needles have the greatest year-round and longer-term potential to absorb particulate matter pollution. Air quality models created by scientists at the University of Graz factoring in leaf shape, texture, and wind patterns found that one square kilometer of pine forest planted throughout a city of 300,000 reduced the number of days that particle pollution registered over the healthy limit from 54 to 25. Increasing overall pine-age helped dial back the dust by almost fifty percent.

Trees Absorb Pollutants So You Don’t Have To
Although environmental researchers may not yet be able to provide an exact urban tree-planting protocol to help turn orange skies blue again in the case of extreme wildfire events, under relatively normal conditions, designating more green space in urban areas and planting tree species that absorb particulate pollution can help city dwellers breathe a whole lot easier.

Increasing the capacity of forest ecosystems to function as nature intended by reducing heat-trapping emissions that contribute to the drought conditions that intensify wildfires should be a top priority. As residents of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. learned last week, on a rapidly warming planet, what happens in the forest doesn’t stay in the forest—even if the forest is one thousand miles away.

ICYMI Nature News

The Tallest Sky Vacuum Ever—Ever
After a multi-year quest in search of the tallest tree in the Amazon rainforest, intrepid trekkers have finally captured exclusive drone footage of the ancient giant—in a grove of giants. Follow along on their journey here.

Roadtripping Wildlife
When humans stayed in, animals stepped out. Scientists studying the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on the movement patterns of wildlife have discovered that curious critters took advantage of low-traffic highways and byways to get around. Learn how they made use of the roaming room here.

Hornless Rhinos Are Homebodies
Removing rhino horns to help protect the critically endangered species from poachers is turning the animals into apprehensive homebodies. Without an intact horn to protect themselves and their territory, scientists believe the modified rhinos are playing it safe by reducing their range. No horn, no go, no way.

Meet the Carpenter Squirrels
Flying squirrels in China gnaw grooves in nuts to wedge them in trees, keeping them high and dry and ready for snacking. Crafty!

A Turtle’s Eye View of the Great Barrier Reef
If you’ve ever wondered what sea turtles get up to underwater, scientists at the World Wildlife Fund have captured some amazing turtle cam footage so you can see what the reptiles see—in the sea. Have a look!

What’s the Big, Beautiful Picture?
The winners and finalists of the 2023 Natural World Photography Contest have been announced, and you can explore the amazing images of the world’s wonders here.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
Trees for cooling, trees for purifying the air, trees for habitat, trees for income. We plant them all over the world with the help of our tree-planting partners at Tree-Nation. From April 2022 through May 2023 the trees we’ve planted across 12 projects bring our carbon capture total to 3,787 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 371,990 gallons of diesel consumed, 4,241,864 pounds of coal burned, or 460,643,616 smartphones charged.

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Lisa S. French June 17, 2023

Making Room for Urban Wildlife

2-minute read

If you took the city… and turned it upside down and shook it, you would be amazed at the animals that would fall out.

Yann Martel, Life of Pi

What kinds of creatures would fall out if you turned your city upside down? Here in NYC, we’d shake out 1.1 million domestic animals of the woofing, meowing variety, and a surprising assortment of wild ones, including coyotes, deer, raccoons, possums, skunks, hawks, and the occasional snowy owl. As habitat loss and climate change continue to take their toll on natural ecosystems, wild animals looking for a home away from home can end up in unexpected places, like a green patch of park in the middle of a 23-square-mile island inhabited by 1.63 million people.

By 2050, it’s estimated that 7 billion people will live in urban areas. Whether it’s coyotes in Manhattan, sea lions in San Francisco, or cougars in Los Angeles, cities will be supporting more diverse animal species in response to the impacts of ongoing environmental change. As wildlife and urban dwellers try to adjust to sharing the same habitat, cities that plan for peaceful co-existence will be critical to the survival of some of our increasingly endangered animals.

Because coyotes are going to coyote, and cougars are going to cougar, managing the ecological challenges of making room for urban wildlife takes innovative thinking so that animals can do what they normally do without stressing out their human neighbors.

So, what would a wildlife-friendly city look like? It could look like Los Angeles, the second most populated city in the U.S., which is in the final stages of planning and fundraising for the world’s largest urban wildlife crossing, a 210-foot span over ten lanes of the 101 Freeway, which will create a vital connection for a population of at-risk cougars and other native wildlife.

The average home range of a cougar is 240 square miles, but the fragmentation of habitat by roads and ongoing development is a threat to their survival. By reconnecting the Santa Monica Mountain ecosystem over the 101, the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing will give big cats like P-22, aka the Brad Pitt of cougars, the ability to freely move between regions, helping to save the iconic animals from isolation and extinction.

The wildlife crossing will also provide other California creatures—bobcats, grey foxes, coyotes, and mule deer—with a safe passage between patches of critter-friendly habitat. And human inhabitants of the sprawling city will get a nature boost too. The conservation project’s green space will include a multi-use trail and recreation areas for hikers, bikers, and equestrians—all-around good news for nature-loving Angelenos.

Studying how wild animals live, move, and adapt when faced with the accelerating pressures of habitat loss and climate change is helping conservationists, city planners, and concerned citizens to create resilient urban ecosystems that will make cities healthier and more livable for humans and wildlife on a rapidly changing planet.

You can read about the big cats of the Santa Monica Mountains here and learn more about how a short walk over a ten-lane freeway could be vital to helping these endangered cougars to keep on cougaring from the good people at Save LA Cougars Campaign.

ICYMI Nature News

A Purr-fect Ending
Speaking of big cats, we think you might need to take a look at this unbelievably adorable video of chirping cheetahs at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Did your heart swell to ten times its normal size at the end? Yeah, we thought so.

The Beary Chunky Chompion
Did you predict the winner of Fat Bear Week? If you bet on 747, aka Bear Force One, congratulations on your astute sense of future bear fatness. If you’d like to learn why hibernating bears are able to pack on the pounds and stay healthy, The Washington Post has some interesting insights for you here.

A Brand New Whale
The good news: scientists named a new species of baleen whale this week. The bad news: the 60,000-pound marine mammal, dubbed Rice’s whale, is on the verge of extinction. Geez, give us a chance to get to know the finned fellows…

A Pest-Beating Flowering Plant
Scientists have discovered a Costa Rican plant that turns crop-destroying pests into pollinators. Crafty!

Audubon Migratory Bird Explorer
Have you checked out Audubon’s guide to bird migration yet? You can track the annual journeys of over 450 bird species and learn about the challenges they face to surviving along the way with this cool bird tracking tool. Also, we just wanted to mention the fifth and final beautiful installment of the Birdsong Project is now available—from Audubon to your ears.

Underbirds Are Go
Voting for Forest & Bird’s New Zealand Bird of the Year is now open. Exciting! Which finely feathered candidate will earn your nod of approval? We’re going with the Rockhopper penguin again this year. With those outstanding head tufts, it has to win eventually. Choose your five favorites here.

And that’s all for now. Have a super week!

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Lisa S. French October 17, 2022

City Birds Pump Up the Volume

2-minute read

Can you hear me now?

The lilting birdsong that adds beauty to the soundscape of our planet plays an essential role in avian social interaction, mate attraction, and territory protection. But for feathered songsters nesting in urban areas, maintaining bird-to-bird communications above the din of a bustling city is no small tweet. Urban dwellers of all kinds are regularly exposed to the stress of noise levels above 85 decibels (equivalent to a perpetually running food blender) compared to the 30-40 decibels of a wilderness area. So how do city birds make themselves heard over the honking? They’ve learned to pump up the volume.

According to researchers at Ohio State and the University of California at Davis, birds adapting to survive in cities may adjust the volume, pitch, or timing of their chirps, whistles, and warbles to break through the background noise. Sparrows, northern cardinals, American robins, and red-winged blackbirds are some of the species that can modify their songs to improve vocal transmission.

Because belting out birdsong takes more energy, larger birds have a greater capacity to sing over street racket. Some of the clever critters have also adjusted the timing of their dawn chorus so that it starts ahead of rush hour. Not only do early birds catch the worm, but they also know to trill before traffic starts.

With bird populations down by 2.9 billion across North America since 1970, understanding how and if our avian friends can adapt to environmental change and continued habitat loss is critical to their conservation. Perhaps the meaning of those early morning urban tweet storms roughly translated is “C’mon, people, work with us. We’re trying to sing out here!” If you’d like to find out how to keep the birdsong going, the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have lots of innovative ways to help.

ICYMI Nature News

Even More Bird Beauty
The winning photos of the Bird Photographers of the Year for 2022 have been announced, and they are stunning. Have a look! And if you’ve been following along with the Audubon Birdsong Project, Volume IV is now available for your listening pleasure.

Endangered Migration
Like other winged species, monarch butterflies are struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world. The WWF has released a magical new short film on the threats to monarch migration. You can watch here.

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Land shark.
According to researchers at the University of Florida, a small species of carpet shark found in the South Pacific is adapting to warming seas by learning to fin-walk on land. Time to break out the shin guards.

Shake, Shake, Rattle, and Glow
Meet the Elvis worms. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have discovered four new species of deep-sea worms whose shimmery scales rival the King’s sequined jumpsuits. Iridescent worms? We’re all shook up!

FWP Carbon Capture Report
As scientists continue to discover more ways that trees and forests add to our happiness, we’re glad to have the opportunity to contribute to those positive vibes thanks to our planting pals at Tree-Nation. Since April 2022, the trees we’ve planted across eleven projects bring our carbon capture to 1,562 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 3,878,347 miles driven by a gasoline-powered passenger vehicle, 190,061,769 smartphones charged, or 1,728,720 pounds of coal burned.

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Lisa S. French September 10, 2022

NYC is for the Birds

1.5-minute read

What if New York City, the most densely populated urban area in the United States, could be transformed into a green oasis that’s also a haven for winged wildlife? Can we make more room for nature, so the city is less concrete and more jungle? You bet—think vertical!

There are roughly 36,700 acres of handily sun-facing rooftops in NYC—equivalent to 27,803 football fields or 44 Central Parks. That’s a whole lot of valuable space to create healthy, productive habitat for plants, pollinators, and feathered friends—sky meadows teeming with life—wildflowers, songbirds, butterflies, bees. Greening rooftops would not only make the city a force for nature restoration but would help to preserve wildlife in non-urban areas as well. Connecting fragments of habitat would provide migrating and breeding birds with access to life-sustaining vegetation and food resources where and when they’re needed most.

Researchers from Fordham University investigating the potential for NYC green roofs to attract semi-urban and non-urban birds compared avian visitors to green and conventional roofs in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx during spring migration and summer breeding seasons. They found that birds that typically avoid the Big Apple will make an exception for green roofs that provide the right combination of plants and insects for foraging.

With rapid urbanization and loss of green space, most migratory birds will encounter cityscapes in their travels. Providing rooftop recharging stations planted with bird and insect-friendly vegetation will help increase their odds of survival in a warming world. And green roofs aren’t just for the birds—they also benefit people by cleaning and cooling the air, decreasing noise, and reducing storm runoff. Plus, they’re more lovely to look at. Now that’s a sweet city!

You can check out some inspiring examples of NYC green roofs here and global living architecture projects here. And if you’d like to learn more about what it takes to turn regular old urban rooftops into beautiful life-sustaining habitats, watch this video from NYC Audubon.

Whether you’re urban or rural or somewhere in-between, if you’ve been topping up the winter chow to help out hungry local birds, you can get the inside scoop on the pecking order at the feeder and who comes out on top from Audubon. Here in Manhattan, it’s the doves—always the doves. Update: Be sure to have a look at Carla Rhodes’ wonderful snaps of New York birds getting their fair share—doves on cleanup crew.

Speaking of local birds, congratulations to the 2021 MLS Cup Champions—the New York City FC, aka the Pigeons. Well done and welcome back to your urban habitat!

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Lisa S. French December 14, 2021

Snowy Owl In The City

1-minute read

Bird-wise, it’s been a pretty exciting week here in the Big Apple! In an extraordinary occurrence and much to the delight of nature-deprived city dwellers, on Wednesday, a strikingly beautiful snowy owl flaunted its feathered finery in Manhattan’s Central Park. For a wild creature not accustomed to a flock of camera-wielding humans, the lone owl appeared to maintain an unruffled bird-i-tude despite all of the additional attention.

Why the unusual NYC stopover this particular January? Although some snowy owls spend the entire year on their breeding grounds in the treeless Arctic tundra, others migrate to southern Canada and the northern United States in winter, sometimes traveling as far south as Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas. While New York State is within the avian predators’ normal fly zone, they typically bypass Manhattan. According to Cornell University and Scientific Reports, during migration, snowy owls are most often found in agricultural fields, and along shorelines of oceans and lakes. What the birds look for in a home away from home is owl chow—primarily, small rodents. The large owls may eat more than 1,600 lemmings a year—about 4.5 a day, in addition to other rodents, rabbits, birds, and fish. During seasonal migration, snowy owls follow food resources, adjusting their flight trajectory based on environmental conditions to arrive back in the Arctic at the right time for successful breeding. Because rodents cluster together under snow, the owls may prefer to hunt over snow-covered terrain, although they can also locate prey in snow-free areas.

Well, we did have a dusting of snow here on Wednesday. Plus, the Central Park ball fields make for an appealing, tundra-esque landing site. And when it comes to rodents, yeah, we can certainly help out with those. Whatever the specific reason for the park pit stop, this owl lover was glad to have the feathered fellow nearby and hope it swoops in again at its earliest convenience! FYOI (for your owl information), we’re expecting snow again on Monday—fingers crossed for a return visit. Keep your eyes and ears peeled, New Yorkers!

To learn more about the snowy owl, we highly recommend the beautifully photographed, aptly named Snowy Owl by Paul Bannick. If you’d like to live an owl-friendly life, and who wouldn’t, the International Owl Center offers some useful tips to help welcome and protect the beloved birds. And to receive alerts for all rare bird species in your area, be sure to sign up for notifications from eBird. Happy birdwatching!

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Lisa S. French January 29, 2021

Sweet City: Cultivating Citizen Pollinators

1.5-minute read

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature — Joseph Campbell

Cities—energizing, innovative hubs of productivity as well as stress-inducing sources of noise, pollution, and congestion that often diminish nature, negatively impacting the health, well-being, and resilience of inhabitants. Instead of depleting nature, what would happen if city planners reimagined urban living in a holistic way that promotes nature and green living by design?

When the Mayor’s office of the small Costa Rican city of Curridabat realized that the vast majority of its 65,000 citizens lived with paved surfaces that discouraged the attraction of native flora and fauna, they came up with a transformative nature-based solution for sustainable urban development—the Sweet City. Curridabat’s urban planners envisioned a naturalized city as a “sentient” space that boosts biodiversity and enhances ecosystem services by granting citizenship to V.I.P.’s—very important pollinators.

The Sweet City model recognizes that humans are not separate and distinct from nature but are members of a community of living beings that contribute to the creation of healthy, resilient, biodiverse environments.

Curridabat has reframed the role of essential pollinators, including bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and bats as prosperity agents, valuable native citizens that increase well-being and help ensure the continuity of natural systems that support fresh, nutritious food through local production. By studying conditions that help pollinators thrive, and planting trees, flowers, and community gardens that are natural attractors, the city of Curridabat is encouraging pollinating activities, increasing connectivity to nature through biological corridors essential to species conservation and improving the beauty of visual landscapes.

Naturally recovered urban space, thriving biodiversity, happy citizens—both people and pollinators. We call that a triple-win! It’s no wonder that Costa Ricans are some of the most contented humans on the planet. Apparently the pollinators are feeling pretty alright too!

You can read more about Curridabat’s sustainable development policy to increase biodiversity and protect essential urban pollinators here.

If you would like to join a network dedicated to connecting cities and nature, sign up at biophiliccities.org.

As it so happens, May is Garden for Wildlife Month, and that’s just what we’re gonna do! If you’re also feeling inspired to cultivate your own “sentient space” for pollinators, you can learn about butterfly heroes, native plants and certified habitats from the National Wildlife Federation. Sweet!

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Lisa S. French May 21, 2020

City Turtles

You might not think that an urban beach in densely populated Queens would be a natural choice for a critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle to lay her eggs, but last July, for the first time in the recorded history of New York, one lone turtle laid 110 eggs on Far Rockaway peninsula. In September, after about 60 days of incubation, eight dozen, flippered hatchlings emerged from their shells and very, very slowly trundled toward the Atlantic.

Although young Kemp’s ridley turtles have appeared as far north as Nova Scotia, researchers aren’t exactly certain why this turtle mom traveled so far from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico where the rare species usually nests. Some believe that as global waters warm due to climate change, more Kemp’s ridley turtles will migrate beyond their instinctual year-round comfort zone resulting in larger numbers of shell-shocked seasonal strandings as the northern Atlantic rapidly cools in the winter. You can help keep these youngsters safely turtling around by adopting your very own trio of hatchlings from the World Wildlife Fund. And you can find more magnificent reasons to support marine life in these photos from Call of the Blue / Paul Holberton Publishing.

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Lisa S. French January 7, 2019