Consideration would-be warbler watchers and pigeon peepers: Ornithologists at UCLA and the Pure Historical past Museum of Los Angeles County are recruiting volunteers for Venture Phoenix, a multiyear citizen science initiative investigating birds’ response to wildfire.
The crew is looking for volunteers in California, Oregon and Washington to gather information from July via November, the period of the official West Coast fireplace season.
Volunteers want to decide on a cushty, acquainted spot — a yard, a balcony, a favourite native park — and spend 10 minutes there every week noting any fowl exercise they hear or see. They then enter their observations on the net platform eBird.
No fowl information or experience is required, stated program director Olivia Sanderfoot, a UCLA ornithologist. Rookies particularly are welcome, in reality, as they’re extra apt to note frequent species and behaviors that longtime fowl watchers may overlook.
“Whether or not you might be an knowledgeable birder who has been birding your complete life or you will have by no means considered birds, you might be welcome to hitch Venture Phoenix,” Sanderfoot stated. “We would like this program to be accessible.”
That is the third consecutive 12 months of the research, which started in 2023 with about 300 volunteers monitoring fowl conduct over a three-month interval.
The research goals to grasp the results of wildfire smoke on birds, an understudied part of the ever-expanding Western fireplace season. The extra information volunteer observers collect, the higher ornithologists can perceive how fires have an effect on these animals and what steps may be taken to assist them.
Contributors can decide to the entire season or just some weeks. Researchers will cross-check volunteers’ notes in opposition to fireplace and smoke distribution information to search for patterns in animal conduct. For many who battle to inform a bushtit from a barn owl, the crew has assembled assets to assist distinguish between frequent native species and might reply particular person questions by way of e mail. Volunteers’ notes are additionally reviewed by a crew of knowledgeable birders earlier than being handed on to researchers, who will comply with up with additional questions on any extremely uncommon birds or conduct famous.
What might really feel like informal observations to a yard birder are literally helpful information factors, Sanderfoot stated.
From the primary two years of mission information, scientists have already observed that the presence of soot particles — a serious part of wildfire smoke — adjustments the chance that sure fowl species might be noticed in a given space, Sanderfoot stated. The rationale why isn’t but clear.
Are scrub jays exhibiting up in parks the place they sometimes aren’t noticed? They could be relocating to keep away from sooty skies. Is the motion at a yard feeder getting surprisingly heated? It’s doable that birds aggravated by smoke have gotten extra territorial. Scientists need to know if birds are literally flying to new areas when air high quality declines, or if they’re altering their behaviors in ways in which make them tougher or simpler for human bird-watchers to identify.
“These are the hypotheses we hope to check with the info we accumulate in 2025,” Sanderfoot stated. “The extra individuals we now have engaged, the extra doubtless that we’ll have individuals in place to seize these impacts the place they happen. It requires individuals energy.”
Signups are at www.projectphoenix.research.
The bird-watching can be enjoyable, volunteers stated.
“I’ve loved with the ability to decelerate and simply cease to look at for 10 minutes,” stated Carrie Brown-Kornarens, a Los Feliz ceramicist and wildlife fanatic who has volunteered for Venture Phoenix because the research’s launch. “Staying in a single spot brings the birds to you, and it’s a peaceable expertise.”
