

Bird-Friendly Communities
Where birds thrive, people prosper. From urban centers to rural towns, each community can provide important habitat for native birds. In turn, birds offer us a richer, more beautiful, and healthful place to live.
The Threat
Over the past century, urbanization has taken, fragmented, and transformed ecologically productive land with sterile lawns and exotic ornamental plants. We’ve introduced walls of glass, toxic pesticides, and domestic predators. The human-dominated landscape no longer supports functioning ecosystems or provides healthy places for birds.
The Solution
Audubon’s Bird-friendly Communities strives to provide food, shelter, safe passage, and places for birds to raise their young, through our Plants for Birds and Bird-friendly Buildings programs. As we work to create healthy habitats, we also work to ensure safe spaces for our feathered friends. Check out some bird-friendly yard tips here and read on to learn more.
Plants for Birds
By simply choosing native plants for our yards and public spaces, we can restore vital habitats for birds in our communities and help them adapt and survive in the face of climate change. Audubon’s Plants for Birds program is designed to enable anyone to have a positive impact by planting for birds, right where they live.
Bird-Friendly Buildings
The mission of our Bird-Friendly Buildings programs is to ensure a safer built environment for our favorite feathered friends. Glass and lights present major hazards to birds, killing hundreds of millions of birds each year. Birds hit buildings at all hours. At night migrating birds can be distracted by bright lights in our cities. During the day the problem is reflection or other confusing aspects of glass. Audubon chapters, centers, and programs across the country are working to make buildings safer for birds.
Check Out the Native Plants Database!
Bring more birds to your home with native plants! Visit the native plants database to create a customized list of plants native to your area, get connected to your local Audubon and native plant nurseries, and help us get 1 million plants in the ground for birds.

Bird-Friendly Community News


Unseen Danger: One Day of Deadly Window Strikes for New York’s Birds

What Should I Do If I Find a Nest Where It Doesn’t Belong?

Proclamations, Resolutions, and Ordinances
Our Bird-friendly Communities Team

New Haven’s First Native Plant Nursery Sprouts with Audubon in Action Grant
Our Work in Communities

How One Neighborhood Saved Millions of Gallons of Water With Native Plants

Philadelphia Darkens Its Skyline to Protect Migrating Birds

From Goats to Grandparents: How One Audubon Chapter Is Making a More Bird-Friendly Community
Collage at top of page: Photos, clockwise from top left: Plants for Birds sign, Luke Franke/Audubon ; Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Randy Streufert/Audubon Photography Awards; Pulling invasive plants at Montezuma Audubon Center in New York, Luke Franke/Audubon; Bird-friendly window stickers at Chattahoochee Nature Center, Adam Betuel/Georgia Audubon Society; Native bee on an Erigeron speciosus wildflower, Evan Barrientos/Audubon Rockies; Northern Mockingbird and Ilex verticillata, Barbara Driscoll/Audubon Photography Awards; Bullock's Oriole forages for insects in Crataegus, or Hawthorn, Evan Barrientos/Audubon Rockies; Planting native plants, Evan Barrientos/Audubon Rockies; Peregrine Falcon in front of Philadelphia's city hall, George Armistead