All Ears:
Four Noteworthy Podcasts from
SMA Members and Friends
By Michelle Sutton, City Trees Editor
Georgia Silvera Seamans hosts the monthly Your Bird
Story, a podcast about everyday encounters with
birds in cities. Georgia is the co-founding director
of Washington Square Park Eco Projects (WSP
Eco Projects) in New York City. She has worked as
an urban forester for the City of Boston, and her
doctoral research at UC Berkeley was about main-
streaming the ecosystem services of urban forests
in the municipal government and nonprofit realms
in Northern California cities. You can learn more
about Georgia in a previous feature in City Trees.
"I came to know birds through trees in cities,"
Georgia says. "Trees and other plants are my first
love. As I was looking up into trees and at vegetation
closely, birds came inevitably into my line of sight
and I became increasingly curious about them." Trees
and other plants come up in many of the episodes
of Your Bird Story, although sometimes the bota-
nists, foresters, and other tree people interviewed
are more newly fired up about birds; they're excited
to get right into their bird encounters with Georgia.
Some episodes featuring plant people are Birding
Botanist with Tatyana Soto, A Black Forester Comes
to Birding, with Dr. Thomas Easley, and Balcony
Birdwatching in Singapore, with Shimona Quazi, PhD.
Your Bird Story has its origins in the fall of 2016,
when WSP Eco Projects developed a mobile science
education program, Explore Birds, with the help
of Street Lab (formerly the Uni Project) and a
Blake-Nuttall Fund Grant. The Explore Birds cart
included bird specimens (skins) for people to see
and touch. "The specimens became unintentional
prompts," Georgia says. "They led to people spon-
taneously and joyfully telling me stories about
Your Bird Story
Georgia Silvera Seamans
24 CityTREES
