Birds are an ecological litmus paper.
Butterflies may be better indicators of the health of our environment than birds.
I can recognize the calls of practically every bird in North America. There are some in Africa I don't know, though
Vultures are homely, but they clean up all the garbage and that's good. And they're elegant in the sky.
Birds are, perhaps, the most eloquent expression of reality.
My father said you can't make a living in birds, my relatives all went into business: bankers, stockbrokers. However, they eventually lost it all and died in wheelchairs. Sometimes you have to be a little aberrant.
I consider myself to have been the bridge between the shotgun and the binoculars in bird watching. Before I came along, the primary way to observe birds was to shoot them and stuff them.
More birds have adapted to a changing world than have failed. Very few have the narrow tolerance of the ivory-billed woodpecker or the Bachman's warbler.
Birds, it must be admitted, are the most exciting and most deserving of the vertebrates; they are perhaps the best entre into the study of natural history, and a very good wedge into conservation awareness.
Birds ... are sensitive indicators of the environment, a sort of "ecological litmus paper," ... The observation and recording of bird populations over time lead inevitably to environmental awareness and can signal impending changes.
Birds have wings; they're free; they can fly where they want when they want. They have the kind of mobility many people envy.
Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we'll soon be in trouble.
The truth of the matter is, the birds could very well live without us, but many -- perhaps all -- of us would find life incomplete, indeed almost intolerable without the birds.