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Audubon At Home

Bird Towns (as of 12/15/11)

MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Upper Moreland
Lower Frederick

BUCKS COUNTY
Newtown Twp.
Lower Makefield
Penndel Borough
Doylestown Borough
Doylestown Twp

BERKS COUNTY
Longswamp Twp.

CHESTER COUNTY
Schuylkill Twp.
West Vincent

LANCASTER COUNTY
Manheim Twp.

LEHIGH COUNTY
Alllentown

Welcome to...Audubon Bird Town! Bird Town is a working partnership of Audubon and municipalities in Pennsylvania to promote conservation and community-based actions to create a healthy, more sustainable environment for birds and people. Audubon provides the tools for the municipality to engage their residents, schools and businesses in making more ecologically-friendly decisions, conserving energy and in the process, saving money. A Bird Town makes efforts to restore valuable ecosystem services to create a culture of conservation where everyone is a potential steward of nature in their backyard and beyond.

What are the Benefits to Becoming a Bird Town?

• An improved quality of ecological systems
• Community pride and increased marketability
• Vastly increased resources to native birds and native insects
• A safer, more rewarding place to live, work, and play
• Economic development and higher property values
• Maintenance costs and times reduced
• Cleaner water, cleaner air, less landfill
• Cooperation of community officials, constituents, and businesses
• Encourages exercise, recreation and community pride and cohesion
• Renewed ecosystem services such as stormwater management

How Does My Municipality Become a Bird Town?

The following is required to become a Bird Town:

1. A completed Bird Town application.
2. The municipalities agree to work with Audubon to immediately promote their Bird Town status by:
   1. Publishing the “Welcome to Bird Town” article in next available newsletter
   2. Creating a Bird Town webpage on the municipal website
   3. Posting at least five street signs (provided) and one banner (see fee options below)
   4. Providing Audubon with local press contacts to promote Bird Town Backyard Workshop dates
   5. Making outreach materials available to the public
3. Assign a “captain” or point person to act as liaison between the “town” and Audubon and coordinate promotional opportunities and related events.
4. Presence at, and promotion of a Bird Town Festival. This may be a regional festival, a stand-alone municipal festival, or as part of an existing eco-fest or community day
5. At least five of the Qualifying Criteria listed on the application.
6. Selection of a program fee option

How can homeowners, schools and businesses help their Bird Town?

The power of Bird Town comes from individuals taking actions on their landscape and in their home to be greener, experience nature every day, and contribute the township’s overall efforts to minimize environmental impacts. For example, by planting native plants and registering your property with Audubon, valuable data will be added to the township scorecard that will continue to improve each year. Contribute to citizen science and you and your family become key players in the world of bird conservation!

Bird Town trainees in Upper Moreland

What Does Audubon Provide to a Bird Town?

• Brochures and educational materials provided for your constituents
• Articles for your newsletters and website, content for CATV
• Promotional materials for the Great Backyard Bird Count and other citizen science programs
• Backyard Ecology workshops open to the residents of Bird Towns
• Street signs for the township’s gateways proudly proclaiming your town cares about birds and the environment
• Annual analysis and reports based on collected data
• Access to experts and resources for consultations or presentations

Carolina Wren © Debbie McKenzie

Why Birds?

A Native Landscape through the Seasons

Discover how a suburban Lehigh Valley home is transformed each season with a landscape full of native plants. =See what blooms, what birds visit, and how native plants can provide bounty and beauty. http://home.ptd.net/~bcmalt/garden/september.html

Birds are the most visible and measurable indicators of environmental health in our natural areas and of far away places from which birds travel. Pennsylvania is located within the Atlantic flyway – one of the main “highways” for many millions of migrant birds and is key to a number of species; PA is breeding grounds for 16% of the world’s Scarlet Tanagers, 10% of the world’s Worm-eating Warblers, and 9% of the world’s Wood Thrushes.

Pennsylvania is also home to a rich variety of resident birds that live most or all of their lives around our homes, towns, and natural areas. Habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation are the leading causes of population declines in birds and also impact other wildlife and plant communities. Roughly 2.1 million acres of wildlife habitat nationwide are converted to residential use every year. So we now look to our own properties as resting, nesting and refueling stations for the most common bird species and those stopping on their long migratory travels. In the process we increase our ability to live with nature rather than against it.

New! Designing with Natives, by John Rogers. Finally, a comprehensive manual to creating a sustainable landscape that balances natural systems, ecological principles and curb appeal! It’s about birds and so much more. Portion of proceeds benefit Audubon Bird Town. For more information, go to www.DWTN.net.

Useful Resources:
Bird Habitat Recognition Program: http://pa.audubon.org/habitat
What Plant for Which Bird? www.pabirdplants.org
Birds to Help: http://www.audubonathome.org/birdstohelp
Calculate your ecological footprint at Designing with Natives: www.dwtn.net
Native Plant Ordinance (Lower Makefield)
Bird Town Resolution (Schuylkill)
Contact us: via email

Support from the following companies and organizations helps make Audubon Pennsylvania’s Bird Town possible.
With support from Together Green and funded in part by a grant from the Community Conservation Partnerships Program under the administration of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Recreation and the William Penn Foundation in support of the Schuylkill Highlands Mini-Grant Program administered jointly by Natural Lands Trust and Schuylkill River Heritage Association.