Five Migratory Birds That Depend on Built-Up Areas
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The journeys of migratory birds don’t just move through untouched wilderness—they span a patchwork of cities, towns, farms, and working lands that provide an important stopover on their twice-annual journeys. They need our help. Programs funded through the Urban Bird Treaty (UBT) have shown that relatively modest, locally directed investments can restore habitat, reduce threats like collisions, and engage communities directly. H.R. 3276, the Local Communities and Bird Habitat Stewardship Act, currently making its way through Congress, would expand on federal funding for locally led projects that create bird habitat, reduce urban threats, and connect communities to conservation. Here are five beloved bird species that depend on the spaces where people live and work:
Baltimore Oriole — New York City
Lesser Yellowlegs are one of the hemisphere’s long-distance champions, migrating from across South America to the boreal wetlands in Canada and Alaska to breed. They stop along the way in shallow wetlands to feed on aquatic invertebrates. California’s Central Valley – once a vast seasonal wetland – is now cropland that feeds much of the nation. Innovative programs like BirdReturns have demonstrated how working lands can fill the gap. By paying rice farmers to temporarily flood fields during peak migration windows, the program creates precisely timed habitat that aligns with birds’ arrival. Tens of thousands of acres of shallow water habitat can be created in a given year, transforming agricultural landscapes into critical stopover sites. This work highlights the complementary role of Farm Bill–style conservation alongside community-based efforts.
Taken together, these examples make a larger point. Migration depends on continuity throughout the hemisphere — a chain of usable habitats spanning continents. Farm Bill-style programs help create that habitat at scale on working lands. The Urban Bird Treaty model, and the expansion proposed in H.R. 3276, ensures that cities and communities can do their part as well.