Cottage country figures prominently in a push to wrap up the latest version of Ontario’s Breeding Bird Atlas. With the five-year census entering its fourth spring, Mike Burrell, the project’s coordinator with the Canadian Wildlife Service (one of five government and non-profit organizations partnering on the atlas) is looking to recruit citizen scientists to tally bird observations during the breeding season, from May 24 until late July. Volunteers are especially needed in central Ontario; that region has the most gaps in terms of data. “Cottagers are the best bet for getting coverage in places where we don’t have a lot of permanent residents,” says Burrell. “The biggest gaps are from North Bay to Parry Sound, Algonquin Provincial Park through the Ottawa Valley, and all the way to Sault Ste. Marie.”
Currently in its third iteration, previous atlas efforts took place from 1981 to 1985 and 2001 to 2005. The atlas divides Ontario into 10-by-10-km squares and uses specific bird-surveying protocols to generate consistent data. The goal is to achieve 100 per cent coverage of squares south of Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay, and five per cent in remote northern regions because of challenging access and limited volunteers.
Such a data set allows researchers to track changes in bird species’ distribution and abundance over time. For example, says Burrell, there’s evidence that common ravens are expanding south from their former limit of central Ontario. At the same time, some red-bellied woodpeckers are now routinely breeding far to the north of their previous range. Population estimates also help to inform species-at-risk recovery plans, besides illuminating broader ecosystem trends. “Birds are great indicators,” notes Burrell. “You find them in all habitats and they fulfill many ecological roles. They’re also easy to survey.”
That’s where cottagers come in. Anyone can submit checklists of birds they identified during the breeding season to an online registry. More experienced birders can also perform “point counts,” standardized observations in which species are identified by sight and sound from fixed locations during five-minute intervals. “Make a bird list every morning on your deck,” suggests Burrell. “Repeated observations from the same location are the most valuable data that we can get.”
This story was originally published in our June/July ’24 issue.
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