Here are Your ... Jobs for the Weekend.
Bird Nerd Edition!
Spring migration is well underway, and birds are flocking to back yards and natural spaces across Ontario from their winter homes down south.
Sit outside anywhere near a tree or shrub for five minutes and you’re almost sure to hear birdsong of some kind. Whether it’s birds trying to find a mate, mark territory, or even starting to raise chicks, it’s a busy time. And you can help
Here are your … jobs for the weekend, bird edition.
Plant a native shrub or tree. Birds need three things to make their home in your yard: Cover, Water and Food. Native bushes provide two of those by offering cover from predators, and a steady food supply of caterpillars. Birds rearing young don’t feed their babies seeds, they feed them caterpillars for the most part, and lots and lots of them. One estimate was that chickadees need 6000 or so caterpillars to raise a single baby from hatch to fledge. Those come from native shrubs and trees that host WAY more of the tasty little critters than ornamental non native trees and shrubs do.
Download Merlin on your phone if you haven’t already, and become that really annoying friend who is constantly educating their friends and family about the birds around them (shout out to my cousin for this idea, who apparently does this all the time). Merlin is an app you can get for free from the Cornell Department of Ornithology, that lets you identify birds using a system of characteristics like size and colour, or by their song. Then - and this is the important part - tell your friends what that bird is. If they know the bird’s name, and that it’s not just a cardinal, robin or sparrow, they may become more invested in taking steps to protecting them. Birding is like the dark side of the force: Once you start down the path, forever will it consume your destiny.
Sign up for Hamilton Falcon Watch’s volunteer orientation and commit to a few hours watching to see if Peregrine Falcons Judson and McKeevor’s new hatchlings plummet off the ledge of the Sheraton Hotel downtown to the busy King St below on their first flight. If they do, you’ll have the thrilling and vitally important role of helping them get to safety. The orientation is at the David Braley Medical Centre at Bay and Main on May 23rd at 5:30 pm, and you can RSVP here: volunteer1@falcons.hamiltonnature.org. Peregrines have come back from the very brink of extinction since DDT was banned, and the work to conserve and expand their population is vital to the health of this species. You can find our more about Hamilton Falcon Watch (including photos of the four chicks) here.
Those are your jobs! Hopefully your weekend if full of birdsong and a little adventure. Until next time!