Seattle's 'Subirdia' Allows Birds to Thrive

Mary Ann Gwinn reviews the book, providing insight regarding Marzluff's research and findings:

In urban Seattle, Marzluff’s research crew found birds even in degraded areas like the industrial neighborhood along the Duwamish River, where they spotted Caspian terns, peregrine falcons and belted kingfishers. But the greatest bird diversity occurred not downtown, or even in forest reserves, but in outlying suburban neighborhoods — “the jumbled collection of houses, allotments and gardens, derelict and vacant land, golf courses and other recreational sites, and by the cemeteries, schoolyards, highway and railway verges, business parks and shopping centres, situated amid the greenways that comprise suburbia,” Marzluff wrote in a recent opinion piece for Aeon Magazine. These areas offer shelter and food, including both bird feeders and a rich mix of plant species that birds rely on.

Given that great diversity of birds, Marzluff dubs Seattle's outlying areas as "Subirdia," and, according to Gwinn, "[Marzluff's] conclusions offer hope in an era of despair at what humans’ destructive habits are doing to wildlife: Given a little help from human hands, birds can thrive in the midst of development."