NATURE CONNECTIONS: Bird Friendly Communities
At this week’s free Nature Connections we will be learning all about creating bird friendly communities. When we create greenspaces in our urban environments such as landscapes with native plants and adopting architecture and lighting systems that reduce collisions, we can provide the greatest benefit to breeding birds and migrants seeking safe places to rest and find food during their remarkable journeys. Come learn what you can do for the birds!
Special Presentations:
1:15 pm/ Lindsey Jacks with Lights Out Baltimore
Saving Birds One Building at a Time
Every 9 seconds a bid strikes a building and dies. Lights Out Baltimore is a nonprofit project of the Baltimore Bird Club, with the goal of making Charm City safe for migratory birds. Lindsey Jacks will lead an engaging talk on how migratory birds are affected by light pollution and glass collisions, what species have been rescued downtown, which buildings have reduced collisions and light pollution, and how homeowners can save birds at their own homes.
2:30 pm/ Susie Creamer with Patterson Park Audubon Center
Audubon’s Bird-Friendly Baltimore
Patterson Park Audubon Center is a leader in improving Baltimore for birds and people. Their director, Susie Creamer will explore Audubon’s unique success stories of local wildlife gardens and why Baltimore’s Audubon Center has become a national model for multicultural bird conservation in the urban context. She will examine the innovative education programs and colorful projects to green Baltimore communities for the birds.
About our guest speakers:
Lindsay Jacks is the Director of Lights Out Baltimore (LOB), a non-profit of the Baltimore Bird Club that strives to make Baltimore safe for migratory birds. LOB walks a 5 mile loop downtown during migration season to rescue injured birds and collect the dead ones that have fallen victim to light pollution and glass collisions. LOB works with the city and local organizations to reduce light pollution and advocate for bird-friendly building design. Lindsay has been a bird keeper in Association of Zoo and Aquariums (AZA) institutions for over 10 years and serves on the committee of AZA’s North American Songbird Working Group. She is also a volunteer at Phoenix Wildlife Center. She enjoys caring for the injured birds she finds on her LOB walks and releasing them back to the wild.
Susie Creamer is director of Patterson Park Audubon Center in Baltimore City, where she and her staff create bird habitat in the urban context and instruct nature-based education programs for all ages in a multicultural community. Programs and projects of the Center take place in English and in Spanish. Before Audubon, Susie managed education programs at Irvine Nature Center, taught science at St. Paul’s, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay. Susie has a BS in biology from Washington and Lee University and an MS in environmental science from Johns Hopkins University. She speaks regularly to garden clubs and at conferences, including the keynote presentation at a national teachers’ conference in Panama City, Panama! In 2018, Susie was named by Baltimore magazine as one of 30 Visionaries of Baltimore, change-makers shaping the future of our city.
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