BIRDS

Help song birds to thrive, not just survive: Wild Birds Unlimited

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Study by scientists, naturalist groups and environmental-based companies suggests around three billion birds, or 29 per cent, have disappeared in the last 50-plus years due to human impacts across North America.

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Dan and Laura Guenther, owners of the newly opened Wild Birds Unlimited (WBU) store in Belleville, are helping clients do what they can to help preserve song birds found in backyards and beyond across the region.

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Everything from bird feeders to bird seed is on offer at the Guenther’s store to help little feathered-friends take on all challenges.

The Guenthers are joining their parent company Wild Birds Unlimited in a campaign called “Save the Song Birds” to encourage residents to help song birds thrive.

“A study published September 2019 in the journal Science, found that the population of breeding birds in the U.S. and Canada has dropped by nearly 30 per cent (or three billion birds) since 1970,” said the company.

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“While there are some discouraging findings about overall bird populations in the study, there are encouraging examples of how galvanized human effort can work to bring back our birds,” said WBU in its campaign. “Examples include raptors (+200 per cent), waterfowl (+56 per cent) and woodpeckers (+18 per cent).”

Dan Guenther said in an interview with The Intelligencer at the couple’s North Front Street store, “like a lot of things environmentally, there are some of these depressing numbers, but the nice thing is there’s actually a lot we can do to help the birds.”

The Save the Song Birds campaign encourages “simple actions you can take as a community member to helping the birds,” he said.

“Cats are, after habitat loss, the number-one killer of our song birds. It’s not their fault, they are predators, that’s their instincts. That’s the first thing you can do is to keep the cats inside,” said Dan.

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“The second thing we can do is [prevent] window strikes. Birds when they are migrating, they can get confused by the light, they can’t really tell during the day as well. At night it’s the light, during the day it’s the reflection. They hit the windows, they are injured or they can even die right away,” he said. “Placing stickers on the outside of the windows disrupts the reflection and the birds won’t strike them.”

An estimated 42 million birds are injured or killed every year in Canada due to window strikes. Placing bird feeders within three feet of windows or at further 10 feet away also discourages bird strikes on windows, he said.

A third way to help is “going out, observing birds and then recording what you see and sending it through … the app called ebird” to scientists to help log local bird populations, Dan said.

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Adding bird feeders in a backyard can not only help do local bird counts for observation, it also helps boost bird’s health while not encouraging them to become dependent on human food sources. Birds will visit backyard feeders as part of their feeding routes on natural sources along the way.

Reducing plastics can birds avoid eating harmful materials while removing pesticides from backyards will help songbirds by ensuring there are enough bugs for food in backyards.

“The pesticides kill the birds and they don’t have a food source and the song birds either don’t have enough food to raise their young or they themselves don’t have enough to eat.”

Laura Guenther told The Intelligencer that Belleville and area residents have been doing their part for years to help song birds through backyard feeders.

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She cited Statistics Canada figures which indicated Belleville was a top city for using bird feeders and shelters in backyards to help bird populations.

“Among the large urban areas, households in Belleville were most likely to have made purchases to feed or shelter birds on their property with more than half (53 per cent) reporting this in 2021,” reported StatsCan in its  Household and Environment Survey conducted in 2021.

“Conversely, households in Toronto were the least likely (14 per cent) to have made purchases to feed or shelter birds,” the federal agency stated.

For more details, visit www.wbu.com/save-the-song-birds/.

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