101 Ways to Help Birds

All birders should be conservationists. After all, it would be hard to watch birds if there are no longer any around to watch! But this is such a big issue that it is hard to know how you can really help. And can one person really make a difference? This book assures you that you can and gives some great ideas about how you can help.

As the title suggests, this book presents 101 ways that you personally can help birds. The tips are broken down into several categories: helping birds at home; enhancing the natural habitat of your backyard; supplementing backyard habitat; helping birds away from home; helping birds on a larger scale. This is far more than a simple list. Each of the ways presented includes a detailed description of the problem and what we can do to help.

Some of the ideas are (or should be) obvious, such as keep cats indoors, recycle, clean your bird feeders, and support conservation organizations. Still, it is good to have reminders of even the most obvious things that you can do.

On the other hand, everyone will learn something new from this book. For instance, I had no idea that it was harmful to throw away CD’s and DVD’s and that you could recycle them instead. The author mentions that most places charge fees to recycle these. However, after reading this I noticed that the recycle bins in the front of my local Best Buy include CD’s. It sure would have been nice to know this a few years ago when everyone was getting an AOL disc in the mail every other day!

There are some things listed that will be more challenging for personal reasons. These will vary from person to person. For me, those include limiting beef consumption and driving more slowly. I must admit that I love beef, and I usually drive fast. But it would not hurt me to drive a bit slower, especially on the back roads. As for the beef, the author presents several compelling reasons to limit ingestion, including habitat destruction and the large amount of resources that cattle consume. However, it would be very nice to have a breakdown showing where restaurants get their beef. I could easily avoid ordering beef from places that get their supply from tropical regions.

Do not skip the introductory “why help birds?” section. It presents clear and compelling reasons why all people, not just nature lovers, should care about helping birds.

Every birder should read this book. If we all do what we can to help, and encourage others to do the same, we truly can make the world better for birds, as well as all other living beings including ourselves.