Research by Subject: Citizen (Participatory/Community) Science: Citizen Science Through the Year

September

Join us to learn how you can participate in California’s Biodiversity Day this year. The SDSU Library Green Team together with the SDSU Biodiversity Museum are hosting an iNaturalist workshop focusing on the Find 30 Species for California Biodiversity Day project. We will teach you how to use the app, and how you can contribute to documenting California’s biodiversity!

When: September 11, 2025, 12-2 pm

Where: Farmer’s Market, SDSU Library North Porch

From the California Natural Resources Agency: celebrating our state's rich biodiversity for California Biodiversity Day brings awareness to the incredible nature of California while encouraging actions to protect and steward it. Only together can we safeguard California's incredible biodiversity and ecosystems.

California is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world and is one of 36 Global Biodiversity Hotspots . These are areas containing exceptional concentrations of plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet, but also experiencing high rates of loss. Of any state in the USA, California has both the highest total number of species and the highest number of endemic species (i.e., those that occur nowhere else), including over 30% of all plant and vertebrate species found in the USA. At the same time, approximately 30% of California species are at risk of extinction. To combat the biodiversity and climate crises, California 30x30 is an initiative to conserve 30% of California’s lands and waters by 2030, and this goal was signed into law in 2023.

Below are some books about the biodiversity in California:

Atlas of the biodiversity of California by California Department of Fish and Game
ISBN: 9780972229104

Publication Date: 2003
California's Changing Landscape by Michael Barbour; Bruce Pavlik; Frank Drysdale; Susan Lindstrom
ISBN: 0943460174

Publication Date: 1993-09-01

California is rich because of its great valleys & mountain ranges, rivers & deserts, each home to a unique assemblage of plants & animals. The living landscape of California has changed dramatically over the past one hundred years. The process of rapid change began with emigrants who, from their native lands, carried seed & seedlings to be nourished by California's rich soils & hospitable climate. Change continues today with each wave of newcomers & the process remains unfinished. This book visits each of the major native plant communities that have evolved in California: the dunes & marshes of the coast, the forests that clothe the mountains & the deserts that attract visitors from around the world. It also examines the great cultural mosaic of early native inhabitants & how they built their cultures in harmony with native plants & animals. And finally it looks at restoration of habitats damaged by past activities. This book will assist readers to understand California's rich botanical landscape, past & present, & thus, help them make more knowledgeable decisions for the future. It is appropriate for general readers of natural history, high school & college classes. Available from the California Native Plant Society, 909 12th St., Sacramento, CA 95814.
The California Field Atlas by Obi Kaufmann
ISBN: 9781597144025

Publication Date: 2017-09-01

#1 San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller Winner, 2018 California Book Award Gold Medal (Notable Contribution to Publishing) Winner, 2018 NCIBA Book of the Year Award (Regional Interest) Finalist, 2018 Northern California Book Awards "A gorgeously illustrated compendium."--Sunset This lavishly illustrated atlas takes readers off the beaten path and outside normal conceptions of California, revealing its myriad ecologies, topographies, and histories in exquisite maps and trail paintings. Based on decades of exploring the backcountry of the Golden State, artist-adventurer Obi Kaufmann blends science and art to illuminate the multifaceted array of living, connected systems like no book has done before. Kaufmann depicts layer after layer of the natural world, delighting in the grand scale and details alike. The effect is staggeringly beautiful: presented alongside California divvied into its fifty-eight counties, for example, we consider California made up of dancing tectonic plates, of watersheds, of wildflower gardens. Maps are enhanced by spirited illustrations of wildlife, keys that explain natural phenomena, and a clear-sighted but reverential text. Full of character and color, a bit larger than life, The California Field Atlas is the ultimate road trip companion and love letter to a place.
The California Naturalist Handbook by Greg de Nevers; Deborah Stanger Edelman; Adina Merenlender
ISBN: 9780520954618

Publication Date: 2013-02-15

The California Naturalist Handbook provides a fun, science-based introduction to California's natural history with an emphasis on observation, discovery, communication, stewardship and conservation. It is a hands-on guide to learning about the natural environment of California. Subjects covered include California natural history and geology, native plants and animals, California's freshwater resources and ecosystems, forest and rangeland resources, conservation biology, and the effects of global warming on California's natural communities. The Handbook also discusses how to create and use a field notebook, natural resource interpretation, citizen science, and collaborative conservation and serves as the primary text for the California Naturalist Program.
Ecosystems of California by Harold Mooney (Editor); Erika Zavaleta (Editor)
ISBN: 9780520962170

Publication Date: 2016-01-19

This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for California's remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem type--its distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed. Each chapter evaluates natural processes for a specific ecosystem, describes drivers of change, and discusses how that ecosystem may be altered in the future. This book also explores the drivers of California's ecological patterns and the history of the state's various ecosystems, outlining how the challenges of climate change and invasive species and opportunities for regulation and stewardship could potentially affect the state's ecosystems. The text explicitly incorporates both human impacts and conservation and restoration efforts and shows how ecosystems support human well-being. Edited by two esteemed ecosystem ecologists and with overviews by leading experts on each ecosystem, this definitive work will be indispensable for natural resource management and conservation professionals as well as for undergraduate or graduate students of California's environment and curious naturalists.
Roadside Plants of Southern California by Thomas J. Belzer
ISBN: 9780878421589

"Belzer devised this guide for the person who enjoys the outdoors and wishes to know more about the native plants of Southern California but may not have much botanical training. It serves that purpose nicely. Belzer's striking color photos and concise pl

February

Each February, for four days, the world comes together for the love of birds. Over these four days we invite people to spend time in their favorite places watching and counting as many birds as they can find and reporting them to us. These observations help scientists better understand global bird populations before one of their annual migrations. This year, from 14 to 17 February, 2025, you can participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count, an annual global bird count! Here is a link for information on how to participate: https://www.birdcount.org/participate/. You can also watch the live submissions for birds from around the world.

Launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) was the first online participatory-science project (also referred to as community science or citizen science) to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real time. Birds Canada joined the project in 2009 to provide an expanded capacity to support participation in Canada. In 2013, we became a global project when we began entering data into eBird, the world’s largest biodiversity-related participatory science (community science or citizen science) project.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an inter-organizational effort between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Audubon Society, and Birds Canada, who work together to bring the joys of birdwatching to our members.

Below are some books from the library that can help you to identify the birds you see, as well as enjoy stories and poems written about them to inspire you:

The Sibley Guide to Birds by David Allen Sibley (Illustrator); National Audubon Society Staff (Editor)
ISBN: 0679451226

Publication Date: 2000-10-03

David Allen Sibley, America's most gifted contemporary painter of birds, is the author and illustrator of this comprehensive guide. His beautifully detailed illustrations-more than 6,600 in all-and descriptions of 810 species and 350 regional populations will enrich every birder's experience. The Sibley Guide's innovative design makes it entirely user friendly. The illustrations are arranged to facilitate comparison, yet still capture the unique character of each species. The Sibley Guide to Birds provides a wealth of new information: -Captioned illustrations show many previously unpublished field marks and revisions of known marks -Nearly every species is shown in flight -Measurements include length, wingspan, and weight for every species -Subspecies and geographic varients are covered thoroughly -Complete voice descriptions are included for every species -Maps show the complete distribution of every species: summer and winter ranges, migration routes, and rare occurrences Both novice and experienced birders will appreciate these and other innovative features: -An introductory page for each family or group of related families makes comparisons simple -Clear and concise labels with pointers identify field marks directly -Birds are illustrated in similar poses to make comparisons between species quick and easy -Illustrations emphasize the way birds look in the field With The Sibley Guide to Birds, the National Audubon Society makes the art and expertise of David Sibley available to the world in a comprehensive, handsome, easy-to-use volume that will be the indispensable identification guide every birder must own.
Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper
ISBN: 9780593242384

Publication Date: 2023-06-13

NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER . Central Park birder Christian Cooper takes us beyond the viral video that shocked a nation and into a world of avian adventures, global excursions, and the unexpected lessons you can learn from a life spent looking up. "Wondrous . . . captivating."-Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Immense World A Washington Post and Chicago Public LibraryBest Book of the Year . Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal Christian Cooper is a self-described "Blerd" (Black nerd), an avid comics fan and expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. Whilein thepark one morning in May 2020,Cooperwas engaged in thebirdwatchingritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years oldwhen what might have beena routine encounter with a dog walkerexplodedage-old racialtensions.Cooper'sviralvideo of the incident wouldsend shock waves through the nation. In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today. From sharpened senses that work just as well at a protest as in a park to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birdingexults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world and invites you to discover them yourself. Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper's story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birdingrecounts Cooper's journey through the wonderful world of birds and what they can teach us about life, if only we would look and listen.
Winged Sentinels by Janice Wormworth; Cagan H. Sekercioglu
ISBN: 9780521126823

Publication Date: 2011-07-04

'The ability of the birds to show us the consequences of our own actions is among their most important and least appreciated attributes. Despite the free advice of the birds, we do not pay attention', said Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 1947. From ice-dependent penguins of Antarctica to songbirds that migrate across the Sahara, birds' responses provide early warning signs of the impact of climate change. Winged Sentinels: Birds and Climate Change uses colourful examples to show how particular groups of birds face heightened threats from climate change and to explore how we can help birds adapt in a warming world. Generously illustrated with colour photographs, the book is a fascinating insight into what climate change means for birds, and the potential consequences of ignoring these warning signs.
Ecological Poetics; or, Wallace Stevens's Birds by Cary Wolfe
ISBN: 9780226687834

Publication Date: 2020-04-07

The poems of Wallace Stevens teem with birds: grackles, warblers, doves, swans, nightingales, owls, peacocks, and one famous blackbird who summons thirteen ways of looking. What do Stevens's evocations of birds, and his poems more generally, tell us about the relationship between human and nonhuman? In this book, the noted theorist of posthumanism Cary Wolfe argues for a philosophical and theoretical reinvention of ecological poetics, using Stevens as a test case. Stevens, Wolfe argues, is an ecological poet in the sense that his places, worlds, and environments are co-created by the life forms that inhabit them. Wolfe argues for a "nonrepresentational" conception of ecopoetics, showing how Stevens's poems reward study alongside theories of system, environment, and observation derived from a multitude of sources, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Niklas Luhmann to Jacques Derrida and Stuart Kauffman. Ecological Poetics is an ambitious interdisciplinary undertaking involving literary criticism, contemporary philosophy, and theoretical biology.
Birds on Wishbone Street by Suzanne Del Rizzo
ISBN: 9781772782196

Publication Date: 2021-11-23

A simple act of neighborly kindness and a bird that needs their aid helps former refugee Sami settle into his new community with new-found friend Moe Moe's neighbors on Wishbone Street come from all over the world, and she's excited to meet the new boy who just arrived from Syria. Sami isn't quite ready to talk about his past, but he loves birds just as much as Moe does. And who wouldn't have fun in a parkette full of packing snow? When the children discover a female cardinal stunned by the cold, Sami uses his experience taking care of pigeons in Syria to help rescue the bird--an incident that helps Sami to feel more at home. In Birds on Wishbone Street, author/illustrator Suzanne Del Rizzo demonstrates the power of an act of kindness, telling a story about finding home and making friends in new places. Illustrated with her signature polymer clay art, the story revisits characters from Del Rizzo's New York Times Notable My Beautiful Birds and reminds us that we're all more similar than we are different.
Birds of a Feather by Jane Yolen; Jason Stemple (Photographer)
ISBN: 9781590788301

Publication Date: 2011-04-01

Birds offer endless fascination for those of us patient or lucky enough to catch a glimpse. Fortunately, award-winning writer Jane Yolen and photographer Jason Stemple once again give readers the chance to closely observe a brand-new flock of these creatures in expertly rendered poetry and photographs. Each poem and picture combination beautifully and thoughtfully captures both bird and a moment of time. Brief facts about each bird, reviewed by an ornithologist, are included.