
The Spark Bird Project
Roger Tory Peterson's spark bird was a northern flicker. The date was April 8, 1920. He was 11 years old. He and a friend had climbed up Swede Hill in his hometown of Jamestown, New York:
“As we entered a wood lot on the crest of the hill near the reservoir, I spotted a bundle of brown feathers clinging to the trunk of a tree. It was a flicker. I thought it was a dead. Gingerly, I touched it on the back. Instantly, this inert thing jerked its head around, looked at me with wild eyes, then exploded in a flash of golden wing and fled into the woods. Ever since, birds have seemed to me the most vivid expression of life.”
According to the latest data by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, there are nearly 100 million birdwatchers in the United States. Many if not most had their own life-changing Spark Bird experiences. However, there is very little scholarship on the subject. We are helping to change that. A proud Founding Partner of The Spark Bird Project, RTPI is supporting the Project further still by naming the founders -- Dr. Jennifer Lodi-Smith and Janet McNally -- as our very first scholars-in-residence. As resident scholars, Jenn and Janet are surveying artists, conservationists and birders of varied backgrounds, then share what they're learning through podcasts and other programs -- to help inform the work of RTPI, at the nexus of art and nature.
The featured image above is a mural entitled, "Flicker Moment." In 2021, RTPI commissioned artist Erin Ruffino to create the mural for Roger's Art Studio. To learn more about the inspiration and creation of the mural, please visit Erin's website: https://www.erinruffino.com/murals/rtpi.
The Spark Bird Project is an ongoing community science initiative designed to gather, share, and study the stories of people’s passion for birds while gaining scientific insights into a critical piece in the ecology of birds: birders themselves. The Spark Bird Project leverages the tools of social science to study spark bird stories, with research findings going directly back to community partners to inform their efforts towards engaging people in birding. The knowledge gained from The Spark Bird Project helps to craft inclusive experiences that can facilitate spark bird moments for the benefit of the birding community, the new birder, the economy, and – most importantly – the birds and our world! By understanding what hooks and sustains birders, The Spark Bird Project helps grow the constituency of individuals creatively working to conserve and protect our planet. The Spark Bird Project also helps birders better understand each other by sharing spark bird stories publicly at https://www.spark-bird.org/stories and through the Spark Bird Podcast.
Listen to the Spark Bird Podcast episode featuring Arthur Pearson
Jenn Lodi-Smith, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at Canisius University. She is a personality developmental psychologist who uses mixed methods research to study identity development over time. She serves on the executive board for the Association for Research in Personality, as associate editor of the Journal of Personality, is a board member for the Friends of Reinstein Woods, and mentors the Western New York Young Birders Club.
Her spark birds are her kiddos who helped her notice birds and then fall in love with birding. Since then, she has had transformative moments with a fledgling Great Horned Owl, flocks of Atlantic Puffins, a friendly Black-throated Green Warbler, and a fishing Barred Owl!
Janet McNally is associate professor of English and Creative Writing and director of the All-College Honors Program at Canisius University in Buffalo, NY. A novelist and poet, she is author of the novels Girls in the Moon and The Looking Glass (HarperCollins), and a collection of poems, Some Girls, winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. She is a longtime studier of storytelling, and her spark bird is the Great Egret, a bird so beautiful and weird it almost seems fictional.