Tweet it out! Calgary names official bird
After heated debate, the people of Calgary have spoken and officially named the black-capped chickadee as the city’s official bird.
A total of 36,677 Calgarians casted their ballots with the chickadee taking in 44 per cent of the vote amongst a choice of five birds selected through consultation with Indigenous groups and nature organizations.
The official results are as follows:
- Black-capped chickadee – 16,114 votes (44 per cent);
- Black-billed magpie – 8,933 (24 per cent);
- Northern flicker – 6,076 (17 per cent);
- Blue jay – 2,938 (Eight per cent); and
- Red-breasted nuthatch – 2,616 (Seven per cent).
“It was a fiercely contested contest,” said Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner, who brought forward the notice of motion in mid-March to designate an official bird.
“There were a lot of people who said magpies were the bird that we truly deserve and the chickadee is the bird we aspire to, but being able to advocate for all bird species in Calgary is really important.”
Calgary was named a bird-friendly city by Nature Canada and one of the requirements to maintain the honour is to determine a top bird.
Coun. Corrine Eagletail-Frazier of the Tsuut’ina First Nation said it was an honour to be included in the project because of the significance birds have for Indigenous groups across the country.
“We really honour the birds, it’s like the messages and signs, the energy that they provide, because when they’re happy and singing we know things are good and life is good,” she said.
“It’s just a sign that something is not right when they’re not there so it’s important to protect them.”
Saturday’s announcement of Calgary’s official bird also coincides with World Migratory Bird Day with this year’s theme focussed on preventing light pollution.
Dylann Golbeck, a research coordinator and naturalist with the Weaselhead Glenmore Park Preservation Society, says light pollution is greatly affecting the migration patterns of birds and making them confused.
“With migratory birds, for example, it pulls them off of their migratory path, they'll often migrate at night. They'll keep flying around in circles, kind of confused and a lot of those birds, songbirds, for example, will start calling out and then more birds will come,” she said.
“And because we'll hear those birds calling out, then you end up with a whole mass of birds caught in this light and then getting exhausted. Because they're drawn into cities, they're not ending up at high food rich places so it ends up being really dangerous for them.”
Golbeck says her focus now is to educate Calgarians on the importance of reducing their light pollution where possible by shutting off lights when not using them or dimming lights.
Other solutions include using redshifted or warmer coloured lights.
“This is because it doesn't have the broad spectrum radiation coming off of it and the higher end of the whites and blues are more similar to the radiation that you would get coming off the sun so that more triggers a birds response to the sun.”
Chair of the Bird Friendly Calgary Team John McFaul adds that the protection of bird species has become especially crucial over the years.
“Research has shown that the number of birds in North America has dropped by about 3 billion birds through a time period of 50 years,” he said.
“So we are concerned about different things going on in our environment, everyone is concerned about climate change but the loss of biodiversity is really important. They’re like the canaries in the coal mine and if birds are doing well, our environment is probably doing well.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Trudeau promises $1B in loans for child-care providers to expand care centres
The federal government is launching a new loan program to help child-care providers in Canada expand their spaces, and will be extending further student loan forgiveness and training options for early childhood educators, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday.
Spring allergy season has begun. Where is it worse in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
'Nonsense:' Doug Ford slams lawsuits filed by Ontario school boards against social media platforms
Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against a trio of social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.
Several flight attendants from Pakistan have gone missing after landing in Canada
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
N.B. man wins $64 million from Lotto 6/49
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
Multiple bridges in Calgary shut down for police incident
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
King Charles calls for acts of friendship in first public remarks since Kate's cancer diagnosis
King Charles III gave public remarks for Maundy Thursday, addressing the importance of acts of friendship, following his and Catherine, Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnoses.
Fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unravelled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world's most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency.
A dog and a bird formed an unlikely friendship. Their separation has infuriated followers
Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs. But in an emotional video posted online, Peggy’s owners announced that the animals had been separated.