NEW YORK CITY -- Think birds in New York City, and many would envision the rock pigeon, scurrying by on sidewalks and park paths.

Actually, the rock pigeon is just one of many bird species common to the Big Apple, including the American robin, European starling and the water-loving black-crowned night heron, often seen sitting atop the pipes that jut out of the water in Central Park.

And the park is where children and adults joined the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Cornell Cooperative Extension-New York City (CCE-NYC) May 10-13 to Celebrate Urban Birds -- NYC! The national citizen science project got under way this year with a three-year grant of $85,500 in Smith Lever funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service to introduce the project to partners in New York.

"Citizen science is a methodology for involving citizen participants in professional scientific research," said Janis Dickinson, the Lab of Ornithology's director of citizen science and principal investigator of the grant. "This is a project that we are hoping to merge with our other citizen science projects, My Yard Counts and eBird, to examine habitat use by birds in residential landscapes across the urban-to-rural gradient."

Although Celebrate Urban Birds is a national program, Cornell is particularly seeking "to heighten awareness of birds in urban areas, bird diversity and appropriate habitats for birds," explained Gretchen Ferenz, senior extension associate with CCE-NYC.

Saturday was also a day for heightening awareness of Cornell in New York City. Celebrate Urban Birds featured many activities around the city over several days, but the cornerstone gathering took place on the sunny Saturday afternoon of May 12 at the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, located next to the Harlem Meer, the artificial lake at Central Park North.

Throughout the afternoon, the city's urban park rangers led bird-watching walks around the perimeter of the lake, pointing at birds along the way. Two black-crowned night herons were spotted, along with robins, sparrows and mallards, sunning themselves in the shallow water.

Families were also treated, courtesy of the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary Audubon Center, to raptors -- birds of prey, including owls and hawks -- in action. The visitors also took part in such art projects as painting large, colorful cardboard birds or helping design a mural. Other events included a slideshow and talk by Cal Vornberger, author of "Birds of Central Park," and a workshop on bird habitats by the green-energy advocacy group, Solar One.

Lab of Ornithology and CCE officials said that while their program is about celebrating birds, it's also about engaging the public, young and old, in scientific inquiry, or what is called citizen science.

For example, during Saturday's events, staff members were busy handing out bird surveys. Participants were encouraged to choose a green space, whether near their homes or in a park, and check off the number of bird species they could identify.

Among those in attendance May 12 was a group of freshmen from the High School for Law and Public Service, formerly a part of George Washington High School. The students, led by bilingual teacher Lydia Fernandez, were required to attend the bird walk, fill out surveys and write an essay about the experience for science class.

Julissa Jimenez, 14, reported that until that day, she had "never seen an owl."

Her classmate, Jeffrey Gonzalez, 15, also happened upon some surprising facts. "I learned that birds have different niches," he said. "They don't only live in trees." In New York City, that isn't surprising.

The celebration in Central Park was a perfect example of the many goals of citizen science -- to increase awareness of birds, to educate and to glean important data for understanding how birds use habitats that would be impossible to monitor without the help of residents living there, Dickinson said.