Watching the Birds

Annika Rauschelbach

University at Buffalo Environmental Writing Student
Writing Citizen Science and Community in the Niagara Region

The North American Bird Conservation Initiative’s 2025 U.S. State of the Birds Report came out this past March, revealing extensive declines throughout bird populations across the entire United States. Even waterfowl, a highlight in previous years, have shown negative trends largely due to a particularly bad strain of Avian Flu. The 2019 Science article presenting a net loss of 3 billion birds over the past 50 years was supposed to be a wake-up call. Yet, numbers continue to decrease, demanding a renewed commitment to conservation efforts.

Birds are considered indicator species, meaning their health is used to assess the health of the overall ecosystem. As one of the most well-studied groups of wildlife, the data produced regarding avian population trends help us understand any environmental threats that affect us as well.

Roger Tory Peterson, famous for his field guide series, explains this well: “If they are in trouble, we know we’ll soon be in trouble.”

In other words, the plastics, pesticides, and pollutants we dump into the environment eventually make their way back to birds and to us. Watching the birds–making sure they’re happy and healthy–will only bring us good health and wellbeing.

Here in Western New York, we have a unique responsibility to watch out for our avian neighbors. The Niagara River Corridor, the stretch of land between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, supports substantial migratory and overwintering bird populations. Birds don’t like to fly over large bodies of water, so they all squeeze through this little corridor before arriving at their final destination, usually stopping here for a quick nap and a snack. Locations like Fort Niagara State Park, the Buffalo Outer Harbor, and Beaver Island State Park are hotspots for viewing this special migratory phenomenon. Because of this occurrence and the area’s ecological importance to multiple threatened and endangered species, the Niagara River Corridor received a globally significant Important Bird Area (IBA) designation, providing detailed conservation plans to protect species diversity and habitat on a global scale.

The face of this IBA designation is the Bonaparte’s Gull. To get to their breeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska, they cut through the Niagara River Corridor in globally significant numbers.

According to the National Audubon Society, up to 10% of the entire world’s Bonaparte’s Gulls make their way through this tiny area, sometimes reaching numbers of up to 100,000 in a single day. 

Perhaps a more familiar and charismatic species acknowledged under the Niagara River Corridor IBA is the Bald Eagle. Historically endangered, our national bird has successfully been removed from the threatened and endangered species list after monumental efforts to restore populations and nesting habitats. Their population decline was largely due to the use of DDT, a pesticide that made its way into lakes and rivers, contaminating fish and their predators. This particular chemical altered calcium production in birds, making their eggs fragile and easily broken when incubating. Despite just being formally recognized as our national bird as of December 2024, efforts to restore Bald Eagle populations were much more vigorous than most and will continue to be so, through captive breeding programs and legal protections.

The Niagara River Corridor supports a large number of other globally important or significantly threatened/endangered species. Raising awareness within this historically contaminated IBA site, from decades of industrial pollution during Buffalo’s Golden Age, is a key part of conservation efforts–the more people that know, the more people that care, and the more people that will be happy to see their tax dollars go towards restoration and fish and wildlife protection. As data compiled by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicate, birdwatching is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States, encompassing everything from purchasing equipment and supplies to contributing to jobs for 1.4 million people. Revenue made from birding-related activities can be put back into restoring habitats and ensuring that birds are happy and healthy to support an ever-growing bird watching economy. 

The benefits of birdwatching are substantial; increased conservation efforts, economic gains, and a relaxing outdoor hobby can only improve our community life. Creating the infrastructure for observing wildlife can be intensive and time consuming, but the Niagara River Corridor already has a number of state parks, birding clubs, and programs to get involved with. Raising awareness–watching the birds–is the next step for maintaining the ecological integrity of this Important Bird Area.