Bird-Friendly Communities
People in urban areas can play a critical role in fostering healthy bird populations right in their own backyards
Conservation projects of Audubon Minnesota:
Over the past century, urbanization has taken contiguous, ecologically productive land and fragmented and transformed it with sterile lawns and exotic ornamental plants. We’ve introduced walls of glass, toxic pesticides, and domestic predators. The human-dominated landscape no longer supports functioning ecosystems or provides healthy places for birds.
Each community has a unique ecological and cultural story to tell. Creating Bird-Friendly Communities is Audubon’s commitment to the sustainability of our urban, suburban, and rural places. We can each do our part. We can restore and reconnect these places. We can reestablish the ecological functions of our cities and towns. We can provide essential, safe habitat for birds, choosing native plants and providing birdhouses, roosting towers, and nest platforms when we landscape our yards, neighborhood parks, and public spaces. With these simple acts, everyone can help make their community bird-friendly.
Project BirdSafe
Reducing hazards to birds
Project BirdSafe started in 2007 and is focused on reducing the number of birds killed or injured when they collide with structures such as buildings. You can help in several important ways.
Bird City Minnesota
Healthy communities for birds and people
Transforming the places where people live and work into habitats where birds thrive.
Bird City is a public recognition program to encourage urban bird conservation. Bird City promotes and celebrates communities that fulfill specific criteria which improve bird habitat, reduce threats to birds and engage their citizens in conservation action. Bird City provides a roadmap for communities to incorporate the needs of birds into their overall planning and operations.
Minnesota Important Bird Areas
Essential habitats for birds
Important Bird Areas (IBAs) provide essential habitat for one or more breeding, wintering, and/or migrating bird species. The IBA program is designed to be proactive, voluntary, participatory, science-based and works to identify, monitor and conserve the most essential habitats for birds. Visit Audubon Minnesota to read more about how they determine Minnesota’s IBAs and how they use them to prioritze their work.