When I was growing up in a much smaller Calgary during the 1960s, nature was never far away. I’m not sure how I became fascinated with birds, but yellowing notebooks and old scrapbooks offer evidence that my early interest soon became an obsession. Those days are now far behind.
So are many of the birds. A walk through my old neighbourhood shows that the yards and gardens are as lush and well vegetated as they were 60 years ago, but birds seem fewer. Once-common species are missing; the cheery “chi-bik!” call of the least flycatcher, for example, is rarely heard now. But new birds that are there weren’t even in Alberta bird books back then.
Alberta has changed dramatically over the decades. Inevitably wild rose country’s birdlife has also changed. Our decisions, after all, shape their destinies too. The changes among the birds we live with amount to a sort of ecological report card on our ability to create what novelist Wallace Stegner once described as “a society to match the scenery.”
Where scenery is concerned, my old hometown has eaten a lot of it. Once confined to the sheltered confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers, Calgary now sprawls across most of the wild prairies, sloughs and shrublands where I once built my lists of prairie birds. Urbanization has eliminated long-billed curlews, Baird’s sparrows, meadowlarks and ferruginous hawks. Other birds, however, now thrive in the urban forest that has grown up along city streets. We still have birds, just different ones.
Calgary’s estimated seven million trees provide habitat for a host of bird species virtually unheard of back when a much smaller Calgary lacked that sheltering canopy. Baltimore orioles forage in the tops of the elms that arch over residential streets. Blue jays chatter in back alleys, vireos sing through the long summer afternoons. House finches and Eurasian collared doves—recent immigrants to the province—nest in backyard spruce trees and feast at bird feeders. Calgary’s forest has turned an otherwise hostile urban environment into a place where at least some woodland birds have found new homes.
Cleve Wershler, a Calgary-based ecologist, lists off some of the birds that thrive in his urban landscapes: house wren, yellow warbler, American robin, northern flicker, black-capped chickadee, cedar waxwing, chipping sparrow, red-breasted nuthatch, common grackle, black-billed magpie. It’s a similar story in most of Alberta’s older cities and towns. As trees, parks and yards matured, birds moved in. Some are as fascinating as they are relatively unknown. Northern saw-whet owls, for example: round little birds whose distinctive repetitive call sounds like a saw being whetted with a file. If you live in Edmonton, chances are these little owls are your neighbours.
“Saw-whet owls appear to be quite common in the Edmonton river valley,” says Geoff Holroyd, a former Canadian Wildlife Service endangered species biologist who now chairs the Beaverhill Bird Observatory, east of Edmonton. “But in the historical records, they weren’t there at all. If you look at pictures of Fort Edmonton from 150 years ago, there’s not a tree in sight. They were all chopped down for firewood and building materials. So that means our forest is only 150 years old.… Those regenerated forests now allow flickers and pileated woodpeckers to build their cavities, which are then used by secondary cavity nesters like saw-whet owls. In the 1990s, when we made a concerted effort to find owls on the Christmas bird count, we got the highest count in North America.”
Growing Populations (Clockwise from top left): Robin, peregrine falcon, Northern saw-whet owl, raven, white-faced ibis. Alberta’s cities have urban forests where some woodland birds can now thrive. Irrigation reservoirs have produced new lake and shoreline habitats in Alberta, helping some water bird populations grow dramatically.
Holroyd hastens to add that, where forest birds are concerned, cities aren’t all good news: “A lot of the forests in the Mill Woods area have been cleared and are now subdivisions. The forest tracts I used to know south of Edmonton are gone. So we’re still chopping forests down, but where we haven’t it’s recovering and more diverse than it used to be.”
Holroyd points out that birds need more than just nesting trees in order to thrive in an urban environment. “When I moved to Edmonton there were nighthawks and purple martins in the city, but within a few years they were gone, and they’ve been gone for decades now. They were able to tolerate the initial invasion of humans, but the growth of the city wiped out their feeding habitats, and of course the spraying for mosquitoes interrupts the food chain for both of them.”
Myrna Pearman, the public face and voice of the Ellis Bird Farm near Red Deer until her retirement in 2020, says it’s not just urban birds that are doing well in Alberta. She notes that water impoundments such as irrigation reservoirs have produced new lake and shoreline habitats in parts of the province where they were once scarce. “Some water bird populations have increased dramatically—white-faced ibis, American avocet, black-necked stilt, American white pelican, osprey and black-crowned night heron. Ducks that benefit from nest boxes, especially common goldeneye, have also increased.”
But for all that some species have benefited from the new habitats we’ve created, the overall bird conservation picture is grim. A comprehensive analysis released in 2022 by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative shows that three billion fewer birds survive on this continent than when I was a young birdwatcher. Among those facing the strongest headwinds are grassland birds and aerial insect-feeders such as swallows and nighthawks.
Our native Alberta prairie birds are now less than half as abundant as they used to be. Swallows and other aerial insectivores are down by almost 60 per cent. It would have been inconceivable in the 1960s to imagine barn and bank swallows ever becoming scarce. Today both are listed as species at risk.
“Burrowing owl, long-billed curlew, ferruginous hawk, loggerhead shrike, chestnut-collared longspur and upland sandpiper all used to nest commonly in the Calgary region as late as the 1960s and early 1970s,” says Wershler. “With the loss of native grassland habitats, these are all now rare or non-existent.”
Pearman says the most discouraging land use trend she has seen in her time as an Alberta naturalist is the spread of canola farming and other monocrop agriculture. “Old farmyards are gone, fencelines are gone; there’s no more habitat.”
Declining Populations (Clockwise from top to left): Barn swallow, long-billed curlew, burrowing owl, common nighthawk. These prairie birds used to nest commonly in the Calgary region as late as the 1960s and early 1970s. But with the loss of native grassland habitats, they are now rare or non-existent.
Where prairie birds and insect-eating species are concerned, it’s not just the loss of nesting habitat and shelter that’s causing trouble. Poisoning is an even more insidious threat. Bald eagles, peregrine falcons and other raptors, as well as some songbird species, became endangered in the 20th century because of a highly toxic pesticide, DDT, that accumulated in the ecosystem to the point where birds could no longer produce young. Public concern led to that pesticide being banned. The renewed abundance of those birds is one of the great conservation successes of the past few decades.
But the agrochemical industry found replacement pesticides that are devastating in other ways. Neonicotinoids are a class of biotoxin even more effective than DDT at killing insects. Neonics are widely used now, not only as sprays but as seed treatments. Nearly every canola and corn seed planted in Alberta is painted with the new poisons which, being water-soluble, quickly wash into wetlands and streams.
Geoff Holroyd points out that neonics have been banned in Europe, and were the subject of a proposed ban here. Under pressure from the agrochemical industry, Health Canada backed down. “Research on the prairies has shown that the highest level of neonicotinoids in ponds is in the spring. They are in the soil; the snow melts, that flushes them into the ponds, and you get the highest levels and it’s still lethal. It’s killing the midges and aquatic insects that are the food of aerial insectivores such as tree swallows.”
“It’s one thing to have neonicotinoids available for treatment if you have an insect problem,” says Holroyd. “But just to prophylactically have them on every seed is irresponsible.”
He, Pearman and Wershler all agree that intensive prairie agriculture accounts for a lot of the harm to native Alberta grassland and wetland bird species. Some of the effects are obvious—vast monocultures that no longer provide habitat for prairie birds—while others are more subtle and unexpected.
“Tree swallows eat aquatic insects that are getting hit by neonicotinoids,” Holroyd says. “But barn swallows eat larger insects such as flies that would normally live in cow manure. Producers treat livestock with ivermectin to get rid of parasites. It remains active in their bodies and droppings for about six months. Cow pies, within six months of cattle being treated with ivermectin, aren’t used by insects. So cow pies no longer produce dung beetles and other large insects that feed barn swallows, burrowing owls and other species.”
The poisoning problem is a fairly straightforward fix. Banning DDT brought back endangered birds of prey. Banning the prophylactic use of neonics and ivermectin would help bring back insect-eating birds that have only recently become rare. But solutions to other challenges facing Alberta birds are more elusive. Climate change is the big one.
On the upside, Holroyd points out, a changing climate brings new birds into the province. “With climate change, birds are going to keep moving farther north. We’re seeing an increase in egrets, for example. The first white-faced ibis was at Beaverhill Lake in 1999, and now you can see flocks of hundreds.”
But for most birds, climate change offers a new set of problems. Pearman’s decades-long monitoring of mountain bluebirds shows that, because of earlier snowmelt, they now return to Alberta weeks earlier than before. That can create what Holroyd calls a “climate trap”—the sudden spring blizzards that birds used to avoid simply by staying south now cause many of those birds to freeze or starve. “Around Ellis Bird Farm,” says Pearman, “mountain bluebird populations have never recovered from the catastrophic spring storm of 2008.”
Meadow voles often breed under the snow. As snow-free periods become more frequent in winter, vole populations decline. Returning birds of prey no longer have a key food source. On the other hand, rivers that used to freeze over in the winter now support large wintering flocks of ducks and geese which in turn help sustain bald eagles, prairie falcons and other birds of prey that no longer need to migrate from the province at all.
Climate change yields winners and losers, just as landscape changes and the use of agricultural chemicals do. Sadly, many of the losers are songbirds, shorebirds and other native species that give our province its unique nature. The winners include ravens, magpies, gulls and other scavenging species that are able to profit from others’ losses.
The dawn chorus of birdsong is an experience that seems to be fading into Alberta’s past.
Awakening to a dawn chorus of native songbirds can feel like the whole world is shouting for joy. Sadly, among the many changes to Alberta’s birds, that morning chaos of birdsong is an experience that seems to be fading into the past.
Myrna Pearman says she no longer hears hermit and Swainson’s thrushes or ovenbirds on morning rambles near her home at Sylvan Lake. “While walking the woods, the spring birdsong of years past seems to be much quieter.”
Geoff Holroyd concurs: “The dawn chorus isn’t there. I was just out at Gregg Lake [northwest of Hinton] and you’d have to stop and listen, hear one bird, and then go on and hear another species and another—there isn’t the cacophony of song that there used to be.”
We could get it back—if enough Albertans cared enough about birds to demand better pesticide regulations, reformed land use policies and action on climate change. And in fact both Holroyd and Pearman see encouraging signs that this could happen.
Interest in birding exploded during and after the pandemic. Pearman’s Backyard Bird Feeding: An Alberta Guide sold out its first printing in less than six months. The second is almost sold out too. The Beaverhill Bird Observatory can barely keep up with public demand for its talks and nature walks. Holroyd says that nighttime owl adventures attract 70 people at a time, and the observatory hosted over 1,700 visitors in 2023. The off-site 2024 Beaverhill Snow Goose Festival drew 1,500 participants.
People who experience birds in their lives care about their well-being, Holroyd says, but they also need knowledgeable coaches who can take the experience and tease the meanings out of it. That’s what the Beaverhill Bird Observatory tries to do with its public programming, and it’s why Holroyd and Pearman deliver dozens of talks to thousands of curious Albertans every year.
“We need people to care about and understand every bird species, not just the most colourful or charismatic ones,” says Pearman. She’s right. As Alberta continues to change, so will its birds. How diverse and abundant they will be is entirely up to us. The first step is simple. Go outside, meet some birds, fall in love.
Kevin Van Tighem is an author, naturalist and former superintendent of Banff National Park (2008–2011).
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