California teen promotes saving dead trees for birds

Dessi with Dick Purvis, founding member of the Southern California Bluebird Club, and Gillian Martin, Program Director of the Cavity Conservation Initiative.

An audience of about 50 members of The Southern California Bluebird Club and the Cavity Conservation Initiative had an unusual guest speaker at their December monthly meeting.  Thirteen year-old Dessi Sieburth, member of the Pasadena Audubon Society, revealed his program to promote dead trees (called snags) for the benefit of birds and other species.   Dessi’s audience is often made up of his peers or those in lower grades.  For that reason Dessi created a replica of a woodpecker cavity to illustrate just what unseen wonders can happen inside a dead tree.  “A dead tree is full of life,” Dessi pointed out.  His slide show tells the full story.  It provides all that an uninformed listener would want to know about why it is important that people learn ways to safely retain more dead trees.

Dessi shows his replica of a woodpecker cavity

You may be wondering how Dessi became interested in snags.  Well, when you dream of being an ornithologist, and when you have several years of  bird study under your belt, you already know that different types of habitat are critical for the survival of different species.  And, indeed!  Dead trees provide nesting habitat for about 85 species of birds, not to mention millions of insect prey.
One of Dessi’s many projects to help birds took the form of building and monitoring nest boxes for Western Bluebirds.  He soon learned that though nest boxes are helpful, dead trees are much more beneficial in the long term because they not only help bluebirds but many other birds and wildlife.  With the support of his devoted parents, Dessi now takes his message to elementary school classrooms, science fairs and other events.   When introduced, his impressive credentials alone are sufficient to get an audience’s attention.   Among them are two awards: the American Birding Association’s 2015 Young Birder of the Year, and the International Eco Hero Award.   Speaking fees and the sale of his bird photo cards and calendars fuel his projects and bird study trips.