Owl, bluebird or woodpecker? Fort Worth ISD students to help choose official city bird
Fort Worth Independent School District elementary students will help the city choose an official bird among a list of six competing for the designation.
Eighteen schools participating in the initiative will be assigned a bird, and students will research and give presentations advocating for their assigned bird to be chosen as the new feathery face of Fort Worth, according to officials. The top presentations will be featured on April 4 during the district’s annual science fair, where community members are invited to learn about the barred owl, eastern bluebird, Carolina chickadee, red-bellied woodpecker, red-shouldered hawk and great egret and cast their votes.
“The idea came about as the science department was engaged in professional learning around using local phenomena to engage students in culturally relevant instruction,” said Cesar Padilla, spokesperson for the Fort Worth ISD. “While studying the state bird of Texas, the (northern) mockingbird, we thought that picking a bird for our community would be a wonderfully unique opportunity for our students to engage in many scientific practices.”
City officials said City Councilmember Elizabeth Beck was approached about the project by Rocco Williams, an instructor in the Fort Worth ISD, and was unaware that the city had no official bird beforehand. In a statement, she said she is personally rooting for the barred owl to win the competition.
“I thought this would be a great opportunity for the Fort Worth City Council to support a learning opportunity within our schools that would have a memorable impact for the participating students. A project like this is especially resonates with me because I have long been an avid hiker and supporter of Texas’ parks and trails, and giving students the opportunity to learn about our urban wildlife at a young age will help cultivate an important love and care for the natural habitats in Fort Worth and our state,” she said.
Fort Worth follows suit of other Texas cities such as Houston, which designated the yellow-crowned night heron as its official bird in 2019 “in an effort to increase awareness of the birds around us,” according to the Houston Audubon. Additionally, the city of Port Aransas, just outside of Corpus Christi, has designated the roseate spoonbill as its official bird. Both cities were recognized by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and Audubon Texas as “bird cities” in 2020 for their commitment to community action and bird conservation.
A local community highlighting a specific bird and nurturing a healthy ecosystem for them to thrive in can draw in birders, or bird-watchers, who contribute to the area’s tourism dollars, said Yvette Stewart, community outreach coordinator with Audubon Texas.
“When you have a birder coming into your community to specifically look at your birds, they’re going to stay in hotels, they’re going to shop for souvenirs, they’re going to pay to enter our parks, they’re going to pay at restaurants,” Stewart said. “It is an incredible impact around our tourism dollars when we are taking care of our parks and our birds.”
The bird-watching ecotourism industry contributes $41 billion annually to the U.S. economy, according to National Geographic.
Moreover, introducing children to birds and letting them contribute to this process allows them to tap into their curiosity about a new subject, get outdoors and build various development skills, Stewart added. Birds can “inspire true scientific inquiry” and also “inspire art.”
“Even when you’re dealing with really young kids who aren’t going to be able to use binoculars, they still love to make sounds and songs. You can… kind of focus their energy into different cognitive skill levels,” Stewart said.
Stewart shared various unique characteristics of each bird with the Star-Telegram. Here are some highlights:
Barred owl
Come out around dusk. “Even on a cloudy day, you can find them actively out… they’re a little bit more visible.”
Have a call and song that sounds like “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” “That is a fun mnemonic for kids to learn so it becomes personable.”
Native American stories can provide insight into cultural history around owls.
Adaptations: can turn their necks 270 degrees
Diet examples: frogs and lizards
Can be seen in suburban or urban areas
Eastern bluebird
Aerial hunters that grab insects while in flight
Diminished habitat that can be aided through nest boxes, similar to a birdhouse, that give them a protected place to nest. Have been impacted by development and pesticide use.
Call sounds like a “bubbling trill”
Can be found at Cedar Hill State Park, southwest of Dallas, in the spring and fall. “An accessible bird.”
Can see an insect from 60 feet away, according to Cosley Zoo
“The males are really, really bright. They have a gorgeous coloring to them.”
Carolina chickadee
“Very communicative;” “very easy to get stirred up;” “spunky”
In the winter, tend to hang in mixed flocks and are considered an “alarm bird” that alerts other birds to nearby predators. “Watchdog of the bird community.”
Less accessible to people because they tend to move and forage very quickly. “For little kids to see them and interact with them and really understand their importance, I think it’s kind of harder than something like the barred owl or bluebird.”
Adaptations: resilient against the cold weather and eat a lot to keep themselves warm. Often hang upside down to reach underside of branches when foraging, according to the National Audubon Society.
May mate for life
Red-bellied woodpecker
Large bird that is easier to spot and active during the day. “If you’re a school student and you’re out on the playground and there’s trees around, there’s a good chance that you could either hear them or see them.”
Although there is a faint red coloring on their bellies, it’s more prominent on the back of their head. “Males have brighter red heads than females.”
“Raucous” and make lots of sounds
“Great mascot for dead trees” and highlight their importance for nesting and foraging habitats
Adaptation: long tongue that wraps around the back of their head while inside their mouth when they aren’t feeding, which protects their brains and helps absorb shock. “When they’re foraging, once they’ve dug that hole with their bill, they can stick their tongue way down in there. They have this little barbed sheath on the tip of their tongue, so they can spear an insect and pull it out and munch on it.”
Red-shouldered hawk
Similar to barred owls, large and easy to see
“Very noticeable white parts in their wings” that can be spotted without binoculars
Call sounds like “a screech”
Diet examples: mice and rats. “Anytime you have a raptor as a species that you’re using as a mascot, you get to talk about predator-prey relationships and the importance of humans not using rodenticide” because the poison makes its way into the ecosystem and food web.
“Interesting vocalizations around defending their homes” with mates calling back and forth to each other to establish their territory or a male calling out to an outsider to tell them to leave
Great egret
Mascot for National Audubon Society
Create “beautiful plumes during breeding season” that show off “labor intensive and energy intensive” feathers that can provide enough food to potential offspring. They were previously hunted for these feathers to be used in fashion, which caused the population to drop drastically but has since rebounded through conservation efforts.
“Incredibly large yellow beak” that distinguishes them from other white egrets
Height is about 4 feet tall, similar to an elementary school student
“They also have a very distinctive flying pattern. It’s a very slow up and down flapping motion for such a large bird. So even when they’re flying across highways, they are often easy to distinguish because of their flight pattern.”
