30,000 crows a-cawing: Christmas Bird Count a gift for birders, scientists alike
The year was 1919.
Centre Block on Parliament Hill was being rebuilt after the infamous fire three years earlier, the Ottawa Senators were starting their trip to a Stanley Cup win over the Seattle Metropolitans, and about half a dozen people joined the city's first Christmas Bird Count.
Skip ahead a century and a bit and there's been the loss and return of top-level hockey to both cities, the (planned) gutting of Centre Block, and the annual bird count is getting ready to return on Sunday for the 105th time in the capital.
It's going to be the 52nd count for Bernie Ladouceur.
"When I was a kid I was really into dinosaurs and planets and African mammals, and they were hard to find in Ottawa," the member of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning.
"But there were bugs and there were these birds all around."
Bernie Ladouceur peers through binoculars at Mud Lake on Dec. 12, 2023, a few days before the 2023 edition of the Christmas Bird Count. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)
These counts span North and South America, with the first happening in 1900.
Co-ordinators such as Ladouceur send volunteers to fan out in a circle on a designated day, tally the birds they're seeing and share them with organizers for a snapshot of which birds are showing up, and where.
"Birders who do the count every year kind of just think of it as a fun excuse to go birding for the day and go out with friends, but the data [is] really important," Mike Burrell, Ontario's regional bird count editor, told CBC Radio's Ontario Morning on Tuesday.
"[It's] used by governments and bird conservationists to track what's happening with bird populations," he said. "We have an amazing data set to look at changes."
The 2022 Christmas Bird Count for black-capped chickadees in central Ottawa: 2,398. (Francis Ferland/CBC)
About 150 watchers tallied 30,000 American crows in the 12 kilometres around Parliament Hill, for example, one of about 40 such circles in eastern Ontario and western Quebec.
Either by hand or through an app, they logged three great blue herons and three grebes (two horned, one red-necked) in the circle including Heron Road and the Glebe.
The sighting of a yellow-throated warbler in Rideau Lakes, Ont., got a shoutout in the national summary. Seeing that migratory bird at this time of year would be historically unusual in Athens, Ga., let alone near Athens, Ont.
As for the wider provincial trends, Burrell said winter weather has been starting later and keeping water birds around later.
If you think you're seeing more Canada geese around central Ottawa, Ladouceur said the data backs that up.
On the other hand, Burrell noted the loss of forest cover and grasslands is cutting back habitat and sightings of ruffed grouse and American kestrels.
Anyone interested in joining can check with Birds Canada to see if there's a count nearby.
Brand new birders can contribute sightings from their own backyard, offered Burrell, while Ladouceur said they could also be paired with someone more experienced.
This year's Canadian counts start Thursday and run until Jan. 5.
