By Ian Fife, Ontario Forest Birds Program Coordinator, Birds Canada
The Ontario Forest Birds program at Birds Canada has had a strong working relationship with the Ontario Woodlot Association (OWA) for almost five years now. Thanks to this partnership, Birds Canada staff have been learning about privately-owned woodlots and private woodlot owners have been learning about ways to manage and protect their woodlots for birds.
Brown Creeper Photo: Roberto Haveroth
The Forest Birds program and the OWA have introduced a project specifically for OWA members, called Project WoodlandWatch. This project allows woodlot owners to enter their observations and has many advantages for both the woodlot owners and for bird conservation. The data entered provide the woodlot owners with a list of species that can be used for their forest management plans, and the Citizen Science data go to Birds Canada to be used in bird conservation research.
In 2021 and 2022, I’ve been working with Erica Dixon, Communication Coordinator of the OWA, to produce bird posters for OWA members. Together, we settled on posters that would highlight cavity-nesting birds, stick-nesting birds, and common songbirds (passerines). This three-poster series will showcase a total of 44 forest bird species.
With the aid of Fleming College student and digital artist Nickolas Krause, we produced the first poster on cavity nesting birds in April 2022. The posters are to aid woodlot owners in becoming familiar with and learning to visually identify these important, common forest bird species. With the knowledge gained, we encourage OWA members to enter their sightings or nests to Project WoodlandWatch using Birds Canada’s NatureCounts database.
Get your poster: Woodland Birds of Ontario – Cavity Nesters
The cavity-nesting species poster is available here, at the OWA’s online Woodland Store. The cost is $40 for non-OWA members and $35.00 for OWA members. We expect to complete the other two posters later in 2022.