Fel Castañeda, Impact and Storytelling Manager, International Cooperation and Conservation, Birds Canada
Earlier this year, Birds Canada chose the Olive-Sided Flycatcher as its 2024 Avian Ambassador. As the year draws to a close, we can reflect on what exactly that position entails. The Olive-sided Flycatcher’s diplomatic mission began way back in May when they first arrived in Canada. They brought us an urgent message, but to understand it we must pay close attention.
Olive-sided Flycatcher. Photo: Chantal Jacques
The birds that returned to Canada this spring were about 3% fewer than those that departed in the fall of 2023. Year after year, the population of Olive-sided Flycatchers shrinks by about this much. This pattern tells the story of a changing world. A world with fewer insects to catch and fewer trees to nest in.
By flying back and forth across the hemisphere, migratory birds get to see the world from a vantage point that we as humans seldom understand. When we fly, we don’t have a layover at every forest and every river. From the window of a plane, in a pressurized cabin, we don’t notice when the ecosystems along the way disappear, but the Olive-sided Flycatcher does. Each time they return in the spring, they bring with them a story of the world beyond human borders. A world that is urgently asking us to act and make some big changes.
Bringing us this story is only the first part of our Avian Ambassador’s mission.
In Canada, near forest clearings, around burns, and at the edges of open areas, the Olive-sided Flycatcher will perch on the tallest branches and scan the landscape. They swoop down and catch— midair—any winged insect that happens to be flying by. Then they return to their perch and snack on their catch. This behaviour earned them the name “flycatcher”, but these birds are so much more than the behaviours we know them by here in Canada. Afterall, they only spend four months with us during the breeding season.
The rest of the time, the Olive-sided Flycatcher is either in their tropical non-breeding grounds, or travelling back and forth from them. While we may picture their non-breeding grounds, as a warm tropical paradise, in reality, the Olive-sided Flycatcher returns to the tropics during the dry season – a season of scarcity.
Perhaps this scarcity is why during migration they are sometimes seen eating fruit as well as insects – more than just a “flycatcher”. However if their most fundamental attribute—that after which they are named—only represents one dimension of who they are, what else could we be missing?
The further south they fly, the more enigmatic this bird becomes. There has been very little research on the Olive-Sided Flycatcher during migration. Along the way, they will interact with different species, in vastly different ecosystems with the natural ease of any local resident. As the world changes, these interactions will also need to change, but in ways we don’t really know or understand.
In Central and South America, there has been considerably less research into these birds or why their population is declining so fast, and herein lies the message we are entrusting our Avian Ambassador to carry south from Canada: We need help. We need to work with people beyond our borders to better understand and care for the world we share.
In June of 2024, Birds Canada announced that with the support of Global Affairs Canada, we will be joining the Conserva Aves initiative. Along with the American Bird Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, BirdLife International, and the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Environmental Funds (RedLAC), we are committed to better understand migratory birds. With this knowledge we aim to work all alongside the Olive-sided Flycatcher to identify priority areas for biodiversity and bird conservation. Conserva Aves will support local communities in creating and sustainably stewarding over 100 protected sub-national areas between 12 different Latin-American countries by 2028.
Olive-sided Flycatcher’s wintering grounds in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes. Photo: Jody Allair
In a few months the Olive-sided Flycatcher will depart once again from the tropics. They will defy the worsening odds and travel over 10,000 miles across the hemisphere. They will return to familiar places, like small pockets of the boreal forest where they’ve had previous breeding success. Some individuals will return to these familiar landscapes, to find the habitat severely altered – or gone.
Here, we must come clean. The Olive-Sided Flycatcher isn’t just an ambassador for Canada’s boreal forest, or aerial insectivores. They are also ambassadors for long-distance migrants, who don’t belong to a single ecosystem or country. The Olive-sided Flycatcher advocates for a huge range of ecosystems between the threat-filled Andes and the also vulnerable boreal forests of the North. Their journey can remind us of the interdependence of all ecosystems, species, and people – and of the urgent need to come together to protect this home we share.
