Urban Cardinals (Guest Article)
Science in the Montreal suburbs
A few days ago the river, the St-Lawrence, not by any means a small river, began to freeze over and wind-chill temperatures as low as -19C have already been recorded. I really would miss a year without a proper winter …
Everyone loves a Cardinal …
This week I am sharing a Guest Article by Anne-Marie Cousineau, a Masters student from McGill University whom we have recently come to know. Her project is particularly interesting to us, if only because a small part of it involves the installation of a monitoring station in our garden. As you will read below she is asking people living in the area to help with her research into the behaviour of the much-loved Northern Cardinals. I know from the reactions of readers to photos of Cardinals that I have posted, how these gorgeous birds speak to us …
Northern Cardinals and participatory science for better urban green space management.
Allow me to briefly introduce myself before telling you all about the iconic Northern Cardinals. My name is Anne-Marie and I’m a master's student at McGill University. My research aims to understand how the cardinals are moving through urban green spaces during the winter season. I also want to explore how access to green spaces and bird-watching can impact people’s perspective on nature. With all this information in hand, my goal is to produce some evidence-based advice to improve our nature management policies in large cities.
For this fascinating project, I’ve been working with the lovely people at the McGill Bird Observatory to install coloured bands and a Motus System radio tag on about 40 cardinals. The birds are then released to 3 different locations, the McGill Bird Observatory, the Baie-D’Urfé area and finally the Concordia University’s Loyola campus area. Once all of these fellas are released, I grab a receiver and an antenna to track their movements every week, until April 2024!
Now this is where you (yes, you!) could help me collect some data.
As mentioned earlier, the cardinals are equipped with a unique colour combination of plastic bands, meaning that each individual can be recognized just by looking at the colour sequence on their legs (see photographs below).
Through the platform iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org), you’ll be able to upload your cardinal observations. It’s easy to use, free, and available on most electronic devices. Once your observation is uploaded on the platform, it will automatically be added to the project!
Not familiar with iNaturalist? Don’t worry, I’ve prepared some detailed guides on how to use iNaturalist and information on how to note the colour sequence, both in English (LINK) and French (LIEN).
Your help could have a significant impact on this project as tracking the birds in urban environments is extremely tricky, mostly because of the intense interference (which makes tag detection difficult). It’s also a good opportunity to do a bit of birding during winter; for some this season can be bleak so adding a touch of crimson red to it might not be a bad thing! If you live in one of our study areas, keep an eye out for Cardinals this winter and who knows, maybe one of them will end up in your backyard!
Singing City Birds
Another study is being conducted by a couple of friends (Barbara Frei - cofounder of the McGill Bird Observatory, and Ana Morales - wildlife research technician, Environment and Climate Change Canada) in the Morgan Arboretum. As you will have gathered, the arboretum is a major feature in my wildlifing patch. They have been using sound recorders set up to monitor birds singing during the 2022 nesting season and a small brochure has been released outlining some initial findings. Over the winter they plan to analyse the recordings from the 2023 migration periods - I certainly look forward to seeing what comes out of that.
I managed to get a copy of their findings to date; apologies for the quality (copy of a copy).
Quoting from their website …
https://www.thebirdsthetrees.com/people
Cities are often on the front lines of environmental change. This has created strong interest in finding urban greening strategies that benefit human communities and protect global biodiversity … Our goal is to identify which urban forest management strategies have the capacity to promote multiple benefits for species conservation and climate mitigation, and thus represent promising nature-based solutions.
Winter Traditions
"We celebrate Winter Solstice more than we recognise Christmas or New Year, because the fact that it is grounded in a physical reality – the shortest day; the still point around which the world turns – matters to me. There’s a real shift happening at this time to this beautiful planet which shelters and homes us, and at that point when we hold our collective breath here in the northern hemisphere, and begin finally to believe in the slow return of the light, this for me is the moment to mark. Whatever else you might celebrate during this season, do think of taking a moment to honour that pause in the long dance of the year."
We haven’t spoken of the garden for a while …
Wildlife garden design:
… consider—as the backyard steward should—that the native American flowering dogwood is “a larval host plant for several moth varieties, including Eudeilinia herminiata, the dogwood thyatirid moth, Antispila cornifoliella, the stinging rose moth, the grand arches moth, the pecan bark borer, the dogwood borer, the rosaceous leaf roller, the diamondback epinotia moth, spring azures, cecropia moths, and the Io moth.” That’s beautiful.
And further consider that the native American flowering dogwood attracts jays, thrushes, nuthatches, sparrows, cardinals & grosbeaks, wood warblers, woodpeckers, orioles, chickadees & titmice, vireos, waxwings, mockingbirds & thrashers, and wrens. More beautiful still.