Hundreds of Calgarians participate in 73rd annual Christmas bird count

Over 300 bird watchers gathered across the city for the annual Christmas bird count, a long-running citizen science project that analyses the numbers of birds and species in Calgary.

The initiative has been taking place across the Western Hemisphere since the 1900s. This December marks Calgary’s 73rd bird-watching event.

Matt Wallace, the vice president of Nature Canada, says nearly 200 people watch from their backyards, who are referred to as ‘feeder watchers,’ while the rest are ‘in the field.’

“When we look at patterns, like 10-25 years in general, we’re seeing more birds in Calgary during the winter’s warm environment,” he told CityNews.

Wallace says this is because Calgary’s trees and shrubs offer reliable food sources for birds in the colder months as well as the open water from the Bow River.

“Over the past 30 years, we’ve seen a huge increase in waterfall so that’s everything from Canada geese mallards variety of other ducks,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of trumpeter swans and tundra swans that have stayed over winter and even some of the perching birds the thrushes,”

This year’s Christmas bird count covers a 24-kilometre radius around the city, including St Patricks Island, where one group identified 15 different species.

“Of course, we see your regular magpies, chickadees, those kinds of things,” said Jessica Armand, a field leader with Nature Calgary.

“We also saw a bald eagle and a little Merlin falcon being chased around by a magpie, so that was a great start to our day.”

According to Wallace, the city has been averaging 69-72 species and about 60-70 thousand birds over the last five years.

Data collected each year is then submitted to Birds Canada and the environmental organization Audubon Society.

“That also allows the data to contribute to kind of larger conservation trends. Where do we need to act? What can we do to support birds?” Wallace said.

Nature Calgary says it will release the data on Monday.