Katherine (Katie) Blake is the Bird-friendly Communities Manager for Audubon Connecticut. She manages Audubon’s Urban Oases, Schoolyard Habitat and Backyard Programs. She works with numerous and diverse partners in creating bird friendly communities in Connecticut schools, parks and yards.  Katie coordinates activities and communications among partners and groups implementing urban oases demonstration sites and schoolyard habitats in several cities throughout the state. She coordinates collaborative projects in New Haven as a partner lead for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership. Working together with Audubon naturalists, she conducts habitat assessments for landowners and educates people on the benefits of bird-friendly landscaping.

Katie was formerly the Coordinator for the MassConn Sustainable Forest Partnership. Here she conducted forest landowner outreach and managed forest protection initiatives such as Forest Legacy grant applications. Prior to coordinating, Katie spent about eight years studying various bird populations on numerous research projects. For her Master’s thesis research she spent three years traveling throughout Cape Cod and the Islands studying Common and Roseate Tern staging ecology, she traveled throughout South and Central America with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Golondrinas de las Americas studying Tachycineta swallow species, and for several years, she studied grassland bird productivity on a military airfield with New Jersey Audubon and Massachusetts Audubon Societies.

Katie has a Master’s in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Mount Holyoke College.

Outside of work, you'll find Katie plotting he next 5K race, hiking with her nieces, working on her poetry, or planning her next international travel excursion!