Marianna B

Birding From an Early Age

Marianna B (last name withheld to protect Marianna) has been participating in Project FeederWatch since she was 8 years old and has designated herself as a “Preventer of Extinction.” According to Marianna’s mother, Erin, “Marianna has had a manifest love of the natural world since she was an infant.” Her interest in birds began at age 6 when her parents installed a feeder outside her bedroom window. When Marianna was eight, she monitored a pair of ospreys throughout their breeding cycle via a live streaming cam and began a self-directed research journey through conservation, ecology, avian anatomy, and bird identification, reading books by Rachel Carson, David Sibley, and Donald and Lillian Stokes, to name a few. Later that same year, she founded her own Wildlife Research Center (WRC), “diligently keeping tabs on the health, breeding patterns, and seasonal shifts of her backyard birds,” according to Erin. For Marianna, “FeederWatching is about more than just birds; it’s about the whole future of the planet,” said her mother.

FeederWatching

Marianna counts for FeederWatch with her father, James, who shared that he enjoys seeing Marianna’s “passion, enthusiasm, and knowledge in action” when they FeederWatch together. Marianna says that she loves everything about participating but especially, counting with Papa and seeing all the different birds.

FeederWatching highlights have included seeing new birds, like a Pine Siskin, and seeing a flock of 100 Red-winged Blackbirds and grackles and the chaos they caused when they invaded the feeders with their noisy chatter. Marianna always enjoys seeing birds that rarely visit her count site,  like jays, robins, crows, and hawks. But she doesn’t like it when the birds go away. She’s seen lots of cats scaring birds and reported that in 2021 they had 40 Chipping Sparrows visiting, but in 2023 there were only eleven.

Favorite Birds and Inspiration

Marianna loves to see kinglets, bluebirds, and Cedar Waxwing, but Prothonotary Warbler, Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Red-shouldered Hawk, and Ruby-crowned Kinglet are her favorites. Marianna says, “I love everything about birds. They’re smart and come in so many varieties. They inspire me to be a better person, and they inspired me to run the WRC! Birds help people become more interested in nature and inspire them to be more caring. Birds are available to everyone, and they connect us to each other—they bring people together.”

Wildlife Resource Center

Marianna’s Wildlife Research Center is having an impact by making people aware and encouraging them to appreciate creatures like vultures, owls, alligators. She is also working to help ecosystems. As she says, “we help grow populations…like plants—bugs—birds—hawks: a foodchain!” She is dismayed by the impacts of human-caused climate change and habitat loss but believes everyone can help by participating in projects like FeederWatch to help scientists monitor populations changes.  “So many birds, amphibians, turtles, mammals are endangered. Vultures are disappearing in Africa and India. So much is happening so fast, in such quantity. I want to be a good example of caring.”

Poem Excerpt

Lines from a poem Marianna wrote when she was 9, about the joy of the grackle’s return.

A summer’s day passes, and Autumn’s
On its way, oh,
How I long for you!
Then, swoop! Sweet as your flight,
You come, the glistening shine of your coat,
The iridescent violet, the brown,
The azure’s everlasting glow…
The Joy, mingled with hope.”