Birds in Champaign vs birds in Urbana? Study shows differences among twin cities

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — Two neighboring cities will have a lot of similarities, but researchers have found a difference for Champaign and Urbana on where birds prefer to flock.

Research led by Henry Pollock at the University of Illinois studied the difference in bird diversity between the two cities.

“We wanted to understand how differences between these two towns affect the birds,” Pollock said. “We also wanted to see how the structure of bird communities might vary across the public/private divide in different seasons.”

After three expert observers followed 80 spots across the two cities (consisting of 39 public parks and 41 private yards) and photographed the birds, they found the city of Urbana had 57% of all birds detected and 83% of rare species.

While Urbana is a smaller city population wise, researchers note that the city has double the public green space and many more trees. This led to greater forest cover and cooler land temperatures to form a more ideal environment for birds.

“In places where there’s been active management to try to increase plant diversity and get some native plant cover back, it has had a big impact on the bird communities,” Pollock said. “Rare species and specialist species were by far more diverse in public parks in Urbana, in particular.”

Researchers note that Champaign has more parks but they are usually smaller and designed for human recreation versus conservation and habitat recreation.

In both summer and winter, the top three Urbana parks for bird diversity were Meadowbrook Park, Crystal Lake Park, and Weaver Park, respectively.

They also found that local birds were found more often in backyards than in the winter, due to more shelter and warmth. Backyards hosted a similar level of biodiversity but distinct communities of birds, the study found.

“Perhaps this will allow people to see that there are small but important behaviors that will influence birds and increase bird diversity,” Carena Van Riper, a natural resources and environmental sciences professor at U of I and a co-lead on the research, said. “These include things like putting up bird feeders, particularly in the winter when food sources are low, planting native vegetation or setting up bird baths.”

In the summer, researchers found backyards also played an important role supplementing parks for a subset of the local bird population.

The full study has been published in the July 2024 journal Landscape and Urban Planning and can be read here .

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