SAN ANTONIO — There’s a new and growing crowd in the birding world. Young adults and teens are spending more time looking to the sky, a trend that Danny Kelleher with the Bexar Audubon Society has noticed.
“I always joke that if you’re under the age of 60, you’re a young birder,” Kelleher said. “But I think that’s changing quickly.”
He helped students at Trinity University start a campus chapter of the society, of which Cole Robinson is president.
“I like a hobby where I can learn something new every single day,” Robinson said.
The more time the group spent spotting birds on campus, the more they noticed how many birds were getting killed or hurt from flying into windows.
“We have a lot of windows on our campus,” Robinson said. “It’s just part of our architecture.”
The group has started tracking window strikes, and Robinson said they’re averaging one incident a day, something he says is above normal.
They’re also working with their school to put decals or decorations on some windows so the birds can see them.
“We wanted to do this because we love birds. That’s our No. 1,” Robinson said. “Our No. 2 is that we love birds so much we want to help them.”