Tracy Wells had just been studying her birdsongs a couple of springs ago when she swore that she heard the call of the exceedingly handsome Northern Parula warbler (pictured above.)
So she grabbed her field glasses, headed down to the bottom of her yard near the Credit River in Streetsville and — voila! She had another addition to her life list.
The lesson, says Wells, is that you don't necessarily have to skulk around in the bushes for hours to see beautiful and unusual birds.
Wells is a Mississauga ambassador with the Great Backyard Bird Count, which has just published the results of its continent-wide backyard survey. This year 19 intrepid Mississaugans took the time to watch their bird feeders for a minimum of 15 minutes over four days and record the species they saw and their numbers.
The results weren't very exciting — no exotics or even semi-exotics — lots of diving ducks, gulls and sparrows, but they are incredibly important, says Wells, who was born and raised in Clarkson and has lived in Mississauga almost all of her life.
"It doesn't take much effort and you feel as if you are doing something important, which you are," says the 42-year-old. "It's a one-day snapshot of all of the birds across North America."
It's rewarding to think that 85,000 other souls this year took the time to count their local birds.
Wells joined the Backyard Count this year because she already belonged to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology which sponsors it. They track the results over years and years and interpolate the results to trace the rise and decline of species, changing migration patterns and the effects of diseases such as West Nile Virus.
You can see the Mississauga results for this year, and since the local count started in 1998, at www.gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/report?cmd=showReport&reportName=CitySummary&city=Mississauga&state=CA-ON&year=2008.
Wells is already a member of several citizen science groups such as Bird Studies Canada, Project Feederwatch and the Peel Naturalists. A "wonderful" speech at the Naturalists' Club meeting by Bridget Stutchbury, author of Silence of The Songbirds: How We Are Losing the World's Songbirds and What We Can Do To Save Them just last month reinforced the Mississaugan's belief in the critical role birds play in the natural world.
The book, which she recommends without reservation, has just been issued in paperback at a price of $19.95.
"People just don't realize how many birds they can see" in their own backyards or neighbourhoods, says Wells. When she first started birding she lived in Meadowvale and often visited that hidden gem of a park in old Meadowvale Village known as the Meadowvale Conservation Area. "I saw so much wildlife there: otters in the river, possums, deer, Great Horned Owls."
She can take a break from her job at Credit Valley Hospital in the spring, walk over to Eglinton Ave. go down into the river valley and see half-a-dozen colourful members of the warbler family. "You can also see all kinds of warblers along the Credit Valley where we live in May."
Three springs ago she and her husband were walking in the valley one evening about 9 p.m. when they spotted an American Woodcock. "I was completely blow away" at the sighting, she says. Now the couple know where and when to look and they see them again every year.
Keeping an eye on her birdfeeder not only provides entertainment value for the bird squabbling and the squirrel histrionics that are featured, but "it makes the winter go by faster," says the committed birder.
And there's something good about even the most brutal winters, such as this one. "Because it's been so cold, we had four common redpolls on the feeder one day," says Wells. "I haven't seen them in years."