Birdwatching and Environmental Science Thrive at St. Edward's

Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy Dr. Peter Beck was a pivotal figure in the St. Edward’s community. When he joined the university in 2003, he created the beloved undergraduate major, Environmental Science and Policy. Since 2003, 416 students have enrolled in the major at some point in their time at ��Ƶ and 210 students graduated with the degree.

Creation of the Ornithology Course and the Peter Beck Birdwatching Club

During his professorship, Dr. Beck battled with cancer for nine years and passed in the summer of 2023. His legacy lives on through the creation of the Ornithology class and the student-run Peter Beck Birdwatching Club, both taught and advised by Associate Professor of ENSP Steven Fletcher.

“I took a lot of classes and one of them was in Spring ‘23 which was a Bird Identification and Conservation course, " Beckett Postiglione ‘23, one of Dr. Beck’s last students, said. “We later found out Dr. Beck was sick with cancer and passed away that summer. We created the club in his honor and hosted weekly walks on campus. We introduced everyone to the e-Bird community science app to identify their birds and worked to survey the birds on campus.”

Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy Dr. Peter Beck was a pivotal figure of the St. Edward’s community.

Postiglione majored in ENSP and interned as a Hospitality Ranger with the Wild Basin Creative Research Center, where he worked in the same habitat as his favorite bird, the Golden-Cheeked Warbler. He is a co-founder of the Peter Beck Birdwatching Club, created in the fall 2023 semester, along with his classmate Wren Conner ‘23. According to Dr. Fletcher, Postiglione and Conner were his “unofficial TAs” and taught him how birding can make us better humans.

“Dr. Beck always taught us that conservation is an uphill battle,” Positglione said. “There are a lot of concerning things happening with climate change, but he always had a smile on his face. If you do your part, you will make a difference.”

A student at the top of Enchanted Rock faces the view with their land up in a Hilltopper sign

What is Ornithology?

Ornithology is a branch of zoology dealing with the study of birds. "Most of the early writings on birds are more anecdotal than scientific, but they represent a broad foundation of knowledge, including much folklore, on which later work was based," says Britannica.

The current president of the club, Iman Haddad ‘27, picked up the torch from Conner and Postiglione after getting involved with the club and hearing about it through Fletcher’s Ornithology course. Through birding, students like Haddad have gained invaluable leadership skills—she also learned that her favorite birds are water birds, specifically the Roseate Spoonbill. Aside from gaining knowledge and an appreciation for the local bird species in Central Texas and beyond, Dr. Fletcher’s larger goal for students is to learn these core skills like leadership, collaboration, reflectiveness and critical thinking.

Haddad said she felt scared and underqualified her first day leading a bird walk. Up until then, she had birded for a year and was familiar with the birds but was nervous about being wrong and leading others.

“The idea of messing up was very scary,” Haddad said. “Now, it's kind of something that I've embraced a little bit. It really helped that Beckett told me this anecdote: ‘the only difference between a novice birder and a really experienced birder, is that the experienced birder has misidentified more birds.’ That’s something I try to keep with me and I tell my club all the time to be confidently wrong. The biggest thing that this club has helped me with is that you don't have to be perfect to be good at leading people, to keep people engaged, entertained and to help people learn and have fun.”

When the club began, students of the ENSP major and other studies came to learn and grow their love for birdwatching. Birding can teach us about more than just birds. It’s a great way to learn about what trees they like to rest on or what they like to eat.

To Vel Jimenez ‘27 (he/they), an ENSP major and vice president of the club, birding is a way for him to connect with the world. He also loves to watch his peers get into birding.

Students study birds from a distance at Enchanted Rock.

Finding Your Spark Bird

Every person who dives into birding has a “spark bird,” or the bird that inspired them to pick up the practice of birdwatching. Jimenez’s favorite bird is the Say’s phoebe, a flycatcher bird; but their spark bird is actually not a bird.

“A lot of people have a Falcon or something—maybe it's the first bird they saw through their binoculars. For me, (my spark bird) isn't really a bird, it’s more so Beckett,” Jimenez said. “His enthusiasm and love for birds is so, so, so, so contagious. His passion for them is so immense and so genuine, and it's really fascinating to see someone just so enthralled by them. I feel his love for birds spread to me and I kind of picked it up from him.”

Students walk across Enchanted Rock for a Texas Ecology class.

Mental Health Benefits of Bird Watching

Word of mouth and sharing a passion for learning is how many students join the club. Angie Delgado ‘27, is a Psychology major and the club’s secretary. Delgado took a dance class with Jimenez who invited her to a birdwalk. After taking a hiatus from figure skating, birdwatching became her new hobby.

Delgado is one of many students who is not an ENSP major but has found community through learning naturalist skills with her peers.

“I like having tidbits about birds,” Delgado said. “My favorite bird is the barn. There are lots of them that nest near my aunt’s house and they’re so sassy. They’ll even scream and divebomb you.”

On her first walk with the club, she saw a waxwing through her binoculars and learned how birdwatching is peaceful and beneficial to her mental health.

Dr. Fletcher agrees.

“Urban wildlife contributes to the wellbeing and stress levels of humans and how it can positively impact people,” Fletcher said. “It’s refreshing to have such a connection with a natural thing that you can feed and watch and see its behavior and connection to the ecosystem.”

Building a Better Bird Campus

When the university shut down for a winter storm in January 2025, Dr. Fletcher drove his pick-up truck to campus to check on the campus birds. He fed the oven birds (his favorite land bird) and the local finches. Even outside of class, he’s teaching his students to be stewards of the earth.

When his students aren’t identifying birds, they’re spending the majority of their time working on their chosen class projects.

Some students are creating a blog to monitor nests in the faculty- and staff-adopted birdhouses on campus, and reporting their findings to the National Community Science Efforts which then go to the Cornell University Ornithology Department.

Haddad, Jimenez and Delgado are learning how to use audio recording equipment to carefully capture bird songs and edit out other noises. They then share these recordings with , Cornell University’s community science app.

Some students are building a bird blind set up behind Equity Hall and the hillside. This is a good mixed habitat for different kinds of birds that like open spaces. They’re also building a rainwater collection for bird baths and a path to the blind.

These efforts aren’t exclusively made through the Ornithology class. On April 10, students from St. Elmo Elementary visited the Butterfly Garden in the Equity Courtyard, a recognized National Wildlife Habitat, to help plant bird-friendly plants and shrubs to attract birds for Tree Amigo Day. There are foxes from a den near the garden where the university has stopped using pesticides so the space can be educational for learning about the value of indigenous plants. On April 27, students from the Birdwatching Club and Ecological Society completed the gardening.

Birdwatching Club members at St. Edward's

(Left to Right) Dalia Zamora '27, Lauren Phillips '25, Jackson Becker '25, Hailey Sonka '26, Iman Haddad '26, Vel Jiminez '27, Grace Hosek '25, Sarah Thome '27

Why Do Birds Fly Into Windows?

Birds often misinterpret a window as a reflection of the sky or as a larger, open space. Students, faculty and staff have noticed an increase of birds colliding into windows on campus. Whether they’re in class, at a meeting or presentation or working in their office, it’s hard to miss. The St. Andre Apartments have student concerns after a grasshopper sparrow ran into the St. Andre Multipurpose Room, a building with floor-to-ceiling windows.

So what can we do to better support our bird’s on the Hilltop?

Before graduating in 2023, Postiglione and Conner began using , another community science app, to open projects around bird-window collisions on campus. Anyone can , take a picture and pin the location. Dr. Fletcher is also working with Associate Vice President of University Operations Jim Morris to get staff to report when they find the birds, what kind and where on campus.

“(You) take a picture and pin the location and (we) start to understand the buildings that are getting more hits than others and think about how to change the reflectivity of the glass,” Dr. Fletcher said.

How to Stop Birds From Flying Into Windows?

Changing the reflectivity of glass is expensive, but there are home do-it-yourself ways to make a difference. Dr. Fletcher says you can make a curtain of hanging paracord of thin lines spaced four inches apart on the outside of the window so birds know not to fly there. You can also paint the windows with thin, narrow stripes so the birds understand that it’s a solid place.

“We’re trying to figure out where there are more windows or walls and can do so in a way that the university resources are put in the right places,” Dr. Fletcher said.