The first rule of Bird Club is you DO talk about Bird Club!
In summer 2021, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC) initiated efforts to introduce its values and goals to organizations and communities that do not typically interact with NGPC programming. These partnerships were established by its Fish and Wildlife Education Division, a small but mighty team of educators skilled in providing engaging outdoor education learning experiences. One of these efforts blossomed into a partnership with Girls Inc. of Omaha, which serves 5-18-year-old girls attending schools east of 72nd Street.
From bird walks to fishing, we had a blast introducing the girls to various outdoor adventures over the summer. After a brief pause in the fall, we began building a new program to integrate into sessions offered to girls every quarter. Girls Inc. does a fantastic job of creating opportunities for girls to explore real world issues and practice gathering scientific data. From this, Bird Club was born!
Bird Club emerged through Project FeederWatch, a Cornell Lab of Ornithology program designed to turn the act of bird feeding into an opportunity for scientific discoveries. From November to April, this toolkit has everything you need to count the birds that visit your observation space. After collecting this data, FeederWatch scientists can analyze and determine the abundance of birds in various areas through the winter. Our goal was to expose the fifth- and sixth-grade girls in Bird Club to the numerous birds that call Omaha home in winter. By engaging the girls in research to determine which bird feeders might attract birds to Girls Inc., we helped them develop the skills needed to complete several bird counts by the end of the club session.
Bird Club took flight in October and has evolved into a fantastic way for the girls to practice scientific observation through bird identification! Club activities also have helped them understand how to properly research types of bird feeders suited to the birds that would use them. We also encouraged the girls to discuss categories of risks that birds face. One such risk is very relevant to Girls Inc. — many birds have crashed into a giant glass window on the side of its building. Recently, through Bird Club, the girls created decals to put on this window to reduce the risk of collisions, which has resulted in modest improvements. They have also installed feeders and have begun feeding the birds, with plans to clean the feeders regularly to prevent disease. Very soon, Bird Club will conduct its first official bird count, and the girls are really looking forward to submitting their data to Project FeederWatch.
The Bird Club girls are doing excellent work familiarizing themselves with local birds and collecting usable scientific data. We can’t wait to see what they do next!
