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This article is part of a series aimed at fostering grassroots wildlife conservation networks in urban areas.
On September 5th 1920 a reader named Charles M. Cist wrote a letter to The New York Times: “Your bird-loving readers will be as interested as I was to know of a rare and beautiful forest bird, the ‘redstart,’ disporting himself in metropolitan New York—on the skylight of the Grand Central Terminal. I have only seen specimens in Canada and Northern Michigan. He is about canary size, black, with large patches of orange red.”
“I, with the other occupants of the office, watched him for twenty minutes catching flies around and under the wire netting. He was not 10 feet away from us. On seeing us, he played his favorite trick of pretending to be injured, falling on his side and fluttering with one wing, and then flew away, but presently came back and busied himself again with his lunch, showing that his hurt was all make-believe. I have seen them do this near the nest, and thought it was to draw the attention of an intruder and lure him away from his little ones, but this one could hardly have had a nest in or on the Grand Central Terminal, especially in these days of high rents.”
A century later, it seems that two things haven’t changed in New York City: high rents and bird lovers. “Without asking people, New Yorkers would just tell all kinds of stories about their interactions with wild birds in the city,” says Georgia Silvera Seamans. She is an urban community forester in New York City and the founder of Local Nature Lab. This nonprofit organization arranges regular bird and tree observations in Washington Square Park to nurture a love for nature and promote biodiversity conservation in New York City. Her last bird migration tour was two weeks ago, as she announced that 34,100 birds had migrated into New York County overnight.
We meet over Zoom while she is in Washington Square Park. Minutes ago, she was there with her students, binoculars in hand, doing basic bird biology and bird ID. Silvera Seamans teaches at The New School and New York University, where her class emphasizes urban parks’ social and environmental history. It’s a typical spring day; the sun and clouds are alternating in the sky, and the park is bustling with visitors, as is the sky. “A red-tailed hawk is flying around in the park,” Silvera Seamans says excitedly. This particular bird sparked her love for birding when she discovered its connection to her home country, Jamaica — the bird’s Latin name is Buteo jamaicensis.
“Over 120 species have been observed in Washington Square Park,” Silvera Seamans explains. This is a significant number for a park roughly 9 acres (4 hectares) in size. New York has long been a hotspot for birds and bird watchers alike due to its prime location along the migration corridor known as the Atlantic Flyway, which stretches from Greenland and Nova Scotia in the north down along North America’s eastern coast to the tropics of the Caribbean.
With its hundreds of acres of parkland, New York provides ideal spots for migratory birds to land and rest during the two major migration seasons in spring and fall. Some birds even breed in New York City, giving us the joy of an additional birding summer season. Observers can watch adult birds alongside the first-year birds, whose plumage looks different. Winter is fascinating for duck enthusiasts, as colorful, beautiful ducks gather in the city during this season.
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Notification after notification arrives on Silvera Seamans’ mobile phone as we speak. It is migration season, and New Yorkers are busy IDing new bird arrivals in the city. “We take the information we gather about birds and trees in Washington Square Park to create a report every year that we submit to the Parks Department. We have collaborated with two other groups on bird reports and surveys: the Naval Cemetery Landscape in Brooklyn and the Graniteville Wetlands in Staten Island,” says Silvera Seamans. The tree phenology data they gather goes to the National Phenology Network. That’s a much larger community science project. “I can’t directly say that changes have been made because of those reports, but there have been more native species plantings in the park since we started to submit them,” she notes.
Before founding Local Nature Lab, she and her group first created a digital map of all the trees in Washington Square Park. They then began meeting bi-weekly at the park, tracking bird populations and conducting scientific surveys. “There’s a wonderful community of bird enthusiasts who use the park,” Silvera Seamans explains. “We invite them to participate in the surveys with us and to join our general bird outings. We’ve developed strong relationships with people in the neighborhood who are interested in birds.”
While Washington Square Park serves as Silvera Seamans’ base, she offers programs throughout the city. One of these is “Explore Birds,” where they utilize specimens from birds that have died from window collisions as educational tools. She runs another program called “Wing It” with a nonprofit in Brooklyn, working with young kids after and outside school.
I asked Silvera Seamans why she thinks people develop such a devoted interest in birds within the city. She replied, “I think, in general, people want to feel connected with the life around them, whether that’s plants, squirrels—another creature in the city with a huge following—or birds. But yeah, there is something like bird fever, too.” She further explains that birdwatching is accessible to everyone. “Birds come to us. We don’t necessarily have to travel far to see them.”
In New York, birding groups are emerging all the time. There are well-known NGOs like the New York City Bird Alliance, the Linnean Society, and the American Littoral Society. But also a new wave of birding organizations, started mainly by younger people, are on the rise: Queer Birders, Feminist Bird Club, the New York City Plover Project. “Every borough in New York City has a borough-based birding club,” Silvera Seamans notes.
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“I think it is changing how people think about New York City. People might think, ‘Oh, it’s all hard landscape. There’s no nature in the city.’ But the fact that you can go out to a park in spring and find these birds that have flown thousands of miles from places south makes you realize that the city is full of biodiversity. Birds are the lens through which people notice the biodiversity that cities support.”
Regular monitoring of these seasonal wildlife visitors, who stopover in New York City, highlights to city authorities that birds keep returning, and indicates the importance of parks as a foothold. Silvera Seamans argues, “One of the best ways to help migratory birds is to make our parks more like native forests. That means adding native shrubs and small trees to public parks provides adequate cover to accommodate migrating birds should they choose to enter New York City.” If the city fails to provide all the resources birds need when breeding, it becomes an ecological trap for them.
According to the 2025 State of Birds Report, one-third of bird species in the US are in decline across all habitats. However, the continuous visits of various species to New York City are something to celebrate. In a small way, it validates the notion that urban dwellers’ actions can support wild birds threatened by urban encroachment on their habitats.
As I finished writing this article, I heard a goldfinch chirping in the tree close to my window. If that New Yorker and his colleagues took pleasure in a red hawk at work during a frantic office life expansion in New York City, then I can, too.
