{"id":9615,"date":"2015-05-24T09:23:07","date_gmt":"2015-05-24T13:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/?p=9615"},"modified":"2015-06-02T12:44:05","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T16:44:05","slug":"birds-iconic-emissaries-of-urban-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2015\/05\/24\/birds-iconic-emissaries-of-urban-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds: Iconic Emissaries of Urban Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the many lessons learned over my decades-long career in urban conservation is that\u00a0iconography matters. Icons have proven to be powerful catalysts in the conservation arena, particularly in the urban context.<\/p>\n

\"Chinook
Chinook Salmon. Photo: Michael Wilhelm, Wilhelm Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Salmon, for example, are the quintessential representative of the natural world throughout the Pacific Northwest in both urban and rural areas.\u00a0Salmon are especially central to the life ways of indigenous peoples; constitute the basis for much of the region\u2019s cuisine; and are a keystone species for watersheds ranging from the vast Columbia River to the smallest urban waterway in cities like Seattle and Portland.<\/p>\n

Camas (Camassia quamash<\/i>) and Oregon white oak are both indicators of the now imperiled oak savannah habitat that once dominated the pre-settlement Willamette Valley in Oregon, a habitat maintained by active management of native tribes. Both the salmon and oak savannah are the focus of much of the ecosystem restoration efforts throughout the Pacific Northwest for reasons that go beyond their formal status as threatened or endangered, owing to their cultural significance.<\/p>\n

\"Camas.
Camas. Photo: Mike Houck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Camassia
Camassia Nature Conservancy Preserve, oak savannah. Photo: Mike Houck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Great
Great Blue Heron. Photo: Mike Houck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Great Blue Heron: Urban Nature Icon\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I assumed the title of Urban Naturalist in Portland in the early 1980s, taking a cue from the attention given salmon and oak savannah, I wondered if we might establish an icon from the natural world to rally urban nature conservation in the Portland metropolitan region. I had read that around sunrise on March 15th<\/sup> of every year since 1957\u00a0 Hinckley, Ohio celebrated the concurrent return of spring and the Turkey Vulture to the “Buzzards’ Roost” at the Hinckley Reservation, part of the Cleveland\u2019s Metroparks system. That tradition, initiated by Hinckley\u2019s \u201cofficial buzzard spotter\u201d, Dr. Bob Hinkle who was a naturalist ranger for the park district, was even taken up by the Cleveland rock station\u2014WMMS refers to itself as \u201cThe Buzzard\u201d\u2014and more recently by the local Chamber of Commerce, which hosts an official Facebook page complete with Buzzard Day Countdown.<\/p>\n

\"Hinckley
Hinckley Ohio Buzzard Days. Source: the Internet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Berkeley, California\u00a0also has a city bird, the Barn Owl,\u00a0which instigator Lisa Owens Viani says was inspired by Portland\u2019s heron. Her passion for Barn Owls began soon after moving to Berkeley in 2003. As she and a friend strolled around their neighborhood they heard a hissing noise that sounded like, what she describes as a respirator. On closer inspection the sound emanated from a palm tree. Unfortunately, not everyone in the neighborhood shared Lisa\u2019s passion for the owl and the palm was shortly thereafter felled.<\/p>\n

Her concern for Barn Owl habitat and the fact that the owls predate on unwanted mammals led her to led her to the\u00a0The Hungry Owl Project<\/a>\u00a0in Marin County\u00a0and Raptors Are The Solution<\/a>. She was surprised to learn that a dozen pair of owls nested in Berkeley, most in the Canary Island palm trees, such as the one in which she saw her first Berkeley owl. In what she describes as \u201cthe least controversial Berkeley Council resolution ever\u201d, the Barn Owl was designated at the city\u2019s official city bird<\/a>.\u00a0 For more information check out Keep Barn Owls in\u0001 Berkeley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Barn
Barn Owl. Photo: Bob Lewis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Threatened Portland heron colony<\/strong><\/p>\n

As with Berkeley\u2019s Barn Owls, the plight of a Great Blue Heron nesting colony that\u00a0lay in the path of a proposed roadway realignment sparked\u00a0a pitched battle against a\u00a0roadway that would have been routed through several acres of wetlands and within a short distance of a public golf course. I got to wondering if elevating the heron\u2019s status in Portland might draw attention to loss of habitat generally and at the golf course specifically. We had already engaged in a heron related land use issue in the late 1970s involving a sand and gravel operation at Ross Island on the Willamette River in downtown Portland.\u00a0It seemed to me that herons were likely to remain in the cross-hairs of proposed developments for years to come and perhaps the time had come to enlist the bird in a public relations campaign.<\/p>\n

\"Great
Great Blue Heron Colony, Ross Island. Photo: Mike Houck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Great Blue Heron, it seemed to me, was the perfect icon, being one of our most charismatic megafauna. They\u2019re impossible to miss, standing over three feet tall, with a wingspan over six feet. No animal, save the salmon, is so representative of Portland\u2019s urban nature scene. Its image is everywhere: blue heron cheese, blue heron condominiums, blue heron bowling lanes, even blue heron music festivals. They live year-round in the Pacific Northwest and can be found virtually anywhere there is water, from the smallest tributary to the Willamette and Columbia Rivers.<\/p>\n

Herondipity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Portland\u2019s former mayor, Bud Clark noted for many eccentricities, including being a political novice tavern owner having deposed one of Portland\u2019s most right-wing politicians, wearing Lederhosen and yelling \u201cwhoop, whoop\u201d on late night TV, and his daily commute city hall in his suit and on his tricked-out bike. But, he was and still is an advocate for nature in the city. In the spring of 1986 Clark was asked to give the welcoming address at the downtown Hilton ballroom to a conference of Western fish and wildlife managers. Bud was also an avid canoeist and duck hunter. During his presentation he gave impassioned descriptions of observing great blue herons from his canoe and as they glided by downtown skyscrapers.<\/p>\n

\"Portland
Portland Mayor Bud Clark with Great Blue Heron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Voila<\/em>, I thought! Given Bud\u2019s impulsive nature, love of nature, and mayoral authority, I grabbed him by the arm as he exited the Hilton and suggested he declare the heron Portland\u2019s official city bird. A few \u201cWhoop, whoops\u201d and two weeks later he issued a proclamation before City Council declaring the Great Blue Heron Portland\u2019s official bird. The golf course, by the way, was renamed from West Delta Golf Course to Heron lakes Golf Course. Ironically, the eighteen holes adjacent to the heronry was named Greenback after what was then called the Green-backed Heron and the second 18 holes were Great Blue.<\/p>\n

\"LEFT:
LEFT: City of Portland official proclamation,courtesy City of Portland) RIGHT: Flyer for Portland’s City Bird<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The author (with Heron) with the Portland City Council and Bob Sallinger (with proclamation), of the Audubon Society of Portland, 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leveraging icons<\/strong><\/p>\n

While adopting an official city bird may sound frivolous, the process of establishing an official city bird when combined with an annual celebration and mayoral proclamation provides a great opportunity to encourage local elected officials to \u201cre-up\u201d their commitment to ensuring that symbol of the city\u2019s environmental quality. In Portland we have celebrated Great Blue Heron Week the last week of May and first week of June every year since 1986. Portland\u2019s mayor reads, and the city council adopts, a new proclamation with numerous clauses establishing why Portland cares that herons live in our midst. The annual proclamation ends with city commitments to undertake habitat acquisition, restoration, and management during the coming year to protect and improve heron habitat and, by extension, fish and wildlife habitat generally throughout the city.<\/p>\n

And, then of course, depending how creative and expansive you want to get, there are always leveraging opportunities. Having just returned from city hall after the first proclamation to one of our favorite watering holes, Bridgeport Brewpub, the brew master walked by and asked how our urban conservation efforts were going. I recounted the fact that we\u2019d just adopted a city bird and he responded he\u2019d just brewed a new ale which he had not yet named. Blue Heron Ale was launched that afternoon. Again, what may sound frivolous to some turned out to be a significant \u201coiling the gears\u201d of urban conservation.\u00a0 Bridgeport became the gathering place for elected officials, agency naturalists, and park advocates where relationships were spawned and plans were hatched for increasing the region\u2019s system of parks, trails, and natural areas and creating healthier watersheds and urban ecosystems.<\/p>\n

\"Great
Great Blue Heron Ale label. Photo Mike Houck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Oregon
Oregon City mayor with Blue Heron Ale. Photo: Mike Houck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five years after the heron became our city bird I approached a muralist who agreed to create a seventy-foot high, fifty-foot wide heron mural on a mausoleum overlooking one of the city\u2019s most beloved wetlands, 160-acre Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge.\u00a0\u00a0Twenty years later we collaborated to expand the original mural with a 55,000 square foot wetland motif to draw the public\u2019s attention to the Bottoms, hoping to accelerate public support for its care and restoration.<\/p>\n

\"Oaks
Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. Photo: Mike Houck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Portland
Portland Memorial Mausoleum and mural.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Oregon
Oregon Poet Laureate, William Stafford original hand written poem, Spirit of Place<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Berkeley\u2019s Joe Eaton, in Keep Barn Owls in Berkeley<\/a><\/i>, reports other examples of city\u2019s having adopted official city birds, including San Francisco (California Quail; Seattle (also the Great Blue Heron);Chicago (Peregrine Falcon); and Port Aransas, Texas (Roseate Spoonbill).<\/p>\n

Internationally Eaton reports the following cities and their official bird: Seoul, South Korea (Magpie); Xiamen, China (Egret); Keelung, Taiwan (Eagle); and in Japan Hamamatsu\u2019s Swallow; Morioka’s Wagtail, and Chiba’s Little Tern. There apparently quite a few other Japanese cities with city birds as well.<\/p>\n

As we prepare for this May\u2019s Great Blue Heron Week and our annual trek to Portland City Council, I have been re-reading William Stafford<\/a>\u2019s Spirit of Place<\/i> poem, which I asked him to write for the first heron week while he was still Oregon\u2019s poet laureate, twenty-nine years ago. With all of the toasting of Blue Heron Ale, countless city proclamations, and other events, nothing comes close to capturing the intent of creating an iconic representative of the natural world that informs our efforts to create a livable, lovable, and ecologically sustainable city as Stafford\u2019s, Spirit of Place<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Spirit of Place: Great Blue Heron<\/strong><\/p>\n

Out of their loneliness for each other<\/em>
\ntwo reeds, or maybe two shadows, lurch<\/em>
\nforward and become suddenly a life<\/em>
\nlifted from dawn or the rain. It is<\/em>
\nthe wilderness come back again, a lagoon<\/em>
\nwith our city reflected in its eye.<\/em>
\nWe live by faith in such presences.<\/em>
\nIt is a test for us, that thin<\/em>
\nbut real, undulating figure that promises,<\/em>
\n\u201cIf you keep faith I will exist<\/em>
\nat the edge, where your vision joins<\/em>
\nthe sunlight and the rain: heads in the light,<\/em>
\nfeet that go down in the mud where the truth is.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2014William Stafford, 1986<\/p>\n

Mike Houck<\/strong>
\nPortland<\/p>\n

On The Nature of Cities<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the many lessons learned over my decades-long career in urban conservation is that\u00a0iconography matters. Icons have proven to be powerful catalysts in the conservation arena, particularly in the urban context. Salmon, for example, are the quintessential representative of the natural world throughout the Pacific Northwest in both urban and rural areas.\u00a0Salmon are especially central […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[300,273,298],"tags":[44,43,23,100],"coauthors":[183],"class_list":["post-9615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay-art-and-awareness","category-essay","category-essay-people-and-communitites","tag-art","tag-awareness","tag-north-america","tag-wildlife-people-interactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9615"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}