British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas



Birds can tell us important things about our environment. Their presence and abundance provide an early warning of the state of ecosystems.

Over 300 species of birds breed each year in British Columbia - more than any other province in Canada. Sixty-five species breed nowhere else in Canada and for several other species, British Columbia holds the majority of the world population. For these reasons, British Columbia plays a pivotal role in Canada's bird conservation efforts.

The British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas web site www.birdatlas.bc.ca was recently launched and birders are now able to register. Anyone can participate in the Atlas. All you need is a pair of binoculars and some bird watching experience or the desire to learn about birds. You need to be able to identify birds correctly but you do not need to be expert - all records are welcome. All data are entered on-line and the results will appear on the atlas web site.

The Atlas Coordination Office hopes that thousands of birders will join over the course of the seven-year project. Start to plan your summer in BC by joining in the fun!

I have had a life long interest in birds. They have brought joy to an increasing number of people around the world but especially in Canada. In recent years I have noticed an alarming decline in many species I once considered a common part of my world. Bird populations are of course the proverbial canary in the coal mine. The health of their populations relates to the health of humans. The Breeding Bird Atlas puts scientific muscle behind vague impressions. It also stimulates public awareness and even that sense of joy I had in my youth. — Robert Bateman, Patron of Wings Over the Rockies
Photo by Birgit Freybe Bateman

Rubber Ducky

Northern Saw-wet Owl

 
Northern Saw-wet Owl roosting in their yard at Radium Hot Springs. January 17, 2007

Some people think their Co-co-co-co-co sounds like a truck backing up. http://www.learner.org/jnorth/sounds/Owl_Saw-whet.mp3

Northern Saw-wet Owl was the most common owl heard on the BC- Yukon Nocturnal Owl Survey http://www.bsc-eoc.org/download/BCowlnews2006.pdf

Bird Studies Canada—
where birding is for the birds!

by Dick Cannings

Wings Over the Rockies is all about enjoying the birds that live in and visit this spectacular part of the world.  For all the enjoyment we get from watching these creatures, I think most of us would be happy to use some of our birding time to gather data on how birds are faring in the Rockies and elsewhere.  Bird Studies Canada is an organization based on that very premise—it uses the skills and enthusiasm of an army of volunteer birders to monitor the bird populations of Canada

Bird Studies Canada has a wide range of programs that gather information on our bird populations.  Perhaps the best known is the Christmas Bird Count, organized in the United States by the National Audubon Society and coordinated in Canada by Bird Studies Canada since 2000.  You can find out more about the count, and view data from all over the country, at the website www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.  

Bird Studies Canada is the North American leader in migration monitoring.  The organization began as the Long Point Bird Observatory, a group of dedicated volunteers that wanted to count birds on the shores of Lake Erie as they flew north in the spring and south in the fall.  That simple idea has blossomed into a network of more than 20 migration monitoring stations across the country.  Alberta birders can help out at stations in Calgary (Inglewood Sanctuary), Beaverhill Lake and Lesser Slave Lake; BC birders can go to Rocky Point near Victoria, Vaseux Lake, Revelstoke or Mackenzie.  Go to http://www.bsc-eoc.org/national/cmmn.html for more information.

Other Bird Studies Canada projects that are enjoyed by birders across the country include Project FeederWatch, the Canadian Lakes Loon Survey, nocturnal owl surveys and Coastal Waterbird Surveys.  Bird Studies Canada can also provide funding for local club conservation projects through the Baillie Fund, and help you raise more money for these efforts through the Baillie Birdathon.  You can find all you need to know about these projects at the BSC website www.bsc-eoc.org.

For me, the most exciting of all the Bird Studies Program is eBird.  I like eBird because it lets me enter my bird sightings into an online database where they can be viewed and used by naturalists, birders and biologists.  So no matter how casual or concentrated my birding is, my data can provide extremely useful information.   

                                  ebIRD

Getting involved in eBird is free and very simple—just go to www.ebird.ca.  There, you can view the data entered by others in the form of maps, graphs, or bargraph checklists.  You can also enter your own data—you could start with the birds you saw at Wings over the Rockies!  eBird will ask you where you birded (you can answer by zooming in on an electronic map and clicking on the spot if you like), what day you birded and how much effort you put into it.  Then you’ll get a checklist appropriate for the place and season (Wings over the Rockies participants would see a checklist for the month of May in the BC interior) where you simply fill in the numbers of birds you saw.  And after entering a few checklists, you can go to My eBird and see how many species you’ve reported.  Be careful—it’s addicting!  eBird is especially valuable for conservation biologists because it is a checklist program, allowing abundance indices to be compared year after year to see how the birds we enjoy so much are doing in this ever-changing world.

                    wINDERMERE mURAL

Students at Windermere Elementary School and artist Tonya Lefebvre celebrate the completion of the new mural on the gymnasium wall on Jan. 18/07. All the students in the school drew a flower on Lefebvre's mural and then Lefebvre touched them all up to complete the masterpiece. Lefebvre has a company that does graphic art, paintings, murals and photography. To contact her, call 345-0054.

                   WILD VOICES for KIDS
       http://www.sd6.bc.ca/drc/WildVoices/index.htm

Wild Voices for Kids is an environmental/heritage education program, which connects students to the land, history and culture of the Columbia Basin. Delivered in Rocky Mountain School District No.6, the program takes advantage of our beautiful surroundings and the expert naturalists, scientists, and historians of the valley. Field trips are a favourite as students come face to face with their environment.

Each year, during Wings Over the Rockies, the Wild Voices for Kids program sponsors many of the classroom speakers and provides birding and nature walks for the schools. We try to give every elementary class the opportunity to participate in a Wings event. In addition, schools take part in research, environmental activities, art and cultural programs, and language arts activities focusing on the Wings theme. A highlight for Grade 4s is the Voyageur Canoe program in which students paddle from Kinsmen Beach to Athalmer Beach imitating the paddling technique of the voyageurs.

It is thanks to sponsors such as Canadian Mountain Holidays, Columbia Basin Trust, Parks Canada, School District No. 6 and others over the years that have made these opportunities possible.

Wings Report 2005

425 students took part in fifteen events during the Festival. These included: