YuLin Zhen, Photography Editor
The Yale Birding Student Association hopes that birding can “take flight” on campus and inspire a new generation of climate leaders.
YBSA is a newly revived club that fosters a community for students interested in birds, offers bird-watching field trips and leads conservation initiatives. Recent projects include setting up bird feeders in Silliman and Saybrook colleges to encourage bird-watching at Yale. The club has over 135 members.
“Our primary goal is to foster an environment on campus where people with interest in birds, whether it be birding or related academic topics or bird conservation in general,” YBSA secretary Yuyang Sun ’25 said. “They can come together and have this space to show interest and talk about all things bird-related.”
YBSA President Karinne Tennenbaum ’26, along with three other Yale students including Sun, restarted the birding club to make birding more accessible and inclusive. For Tennenbaum, her work with the club goes hand-in-hand with her “Taking Flight” project that aims to foster environmental ethics among youths.
Tennenbaum is a member of the World Around’s Young Climate Prize Cycle 02 Cohort where she is continuing this project under the mentorship of renowned designers.
“[YBSA] is a local hub of the project,” Tennenbaum said. “The initiative itself has three goals, research and conservation, environmental education and community engagement, and then diversity, equity and inclusion. [These have] been guiding our interests here on campus as we try to turn the birding society into more than just a casual club.”
YBSA is leading numerous campus-wide initiatives including the Yale Bird-Friendly Building Initiative and Bites4Birds.
The Bird-Friendly Building Initiative is a collaboration between the Yale Law School and the Peabody Museum that is designed to reduce bird-window collisions around campus and identify which buildings are most responsible for bird deaths. YBSA is expanding this initiative by making it become a full volunteering task force.
“Over a billion birds die from window collision, up to 60 percent are fatal,” Tennenbaum said.
YBSA is also leading the Bites4Birds initiative where they are setting up bird feeders in residential colleges. Currently, there are bird feeders at Silliman and Saybrook. YBSA members regularly clean and refill the feeders.
YBSA also hosts educational workshops and birdwatching field trips. Collaborating with Yale Splash, YBSA members host “Birding 101” workshops for middle school and high school students.
“We showed these children that even if you’re not actively going out there and looking for birds, there’s still a lot of diversity in the bird species that you could see,” YBSA member and Splash volunteer Erica Yu ’28 said. “It just shows these kids that it’s good to stay present, that it’s good to be curious about the world and to be on the lookout for that.”
Especially during prime migration seasons, YBSA hosts field trips to East Rock Park, Hammonasset Beach State Park and Lighthouse Point Park.
Tennenbaum added that students from different disciplines can join YBSA. Some students have joined YBSA not as birders but as photographers and writers. They are hoping to host an exhibition in Saybrook this winter with members’ sketches and photos of birds.
“My favorite memory is seeing other people discover the wonder of birds for the first time, and being able to see that on a daily basis just play out in our group that I love,” Tennenbaum said.
Sun hopes that YBSA will have a greater influence on campus especially as climate change becomes more relevant.
“We’re definitely trying to branch out into more types of activities, other than just field trips, even though field trips will still be our primary focus this year,” Sun said. “For example, one of the things we have in the works is a workshop on building birdhouses.”
For Yu, YBSA has been a community where she can meet diverse people — undergraduate and graduate students who all share a passion for birding — and appreciate nature in Connecticut.
Yu hopes that YBSA’s initiatives can increase accessibility and exposure to Yale students and New Haveners.
“When it’s brought to your attention that there are Peregrine Falcons living off Klein Tower or there are red-tailed hawks that will fly around on Hill House, it just makes everything so much more exciting,” Yu said. “It really shows this community that there’s always a lot more to learn about campus, a lot more to learn about the world. And it just shows everyone that if you’re aware, you can really, really learn to appreciate Yale in general.”
YBSA is hosting its next general meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 30, at 8 p.m.