Something nobody warns you about with aging is how fast bird watching creeps up on you. One day you are young and hip, and the next you’re like… “Darn! Is that a yellow-rumped warbler?”

There are lots of online jokes about paying more attention to birds as people age. They are funny because they are true. 
I have to admit – I joined the club a few years ago. Merlin is an app that has helped me a lot in this department. A lot of my friends also use it. Developed at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University, this free app is amazing in scope. It can help identify birds in a variety of ways including by using photos, songs, calls, and a key that gives tips to identification. The first time I sat in my back yard and turned on the sound identification feature, it was incredible how many different bird songs it identified. One of my friends uses the recorded calls to get the birds in her yard talking back to her. There were so many birds I had never seen that I could hear. 

I have always been interested in nature – but a lot of my focus in the past was dealing with plants. Working with crops, identifying weeds has long been important for control and management. Luckily, I learned a lot of weed names and families when I was younger, so that information is stored fairly well. Birds and their songs…not so much. It seems to be kind of like learning a new language. I can try to focus on learning one new bird song, but it seems tough to get that to stick in my brain. 

In 2023, we started a project to reforest some areas on the farm along the Maitland River that had previously been used for pasture. In total, over 20 acres have gone into the project, with over 10,000 trees planted. A duck pond was also constructed with the help and guidance of Maitland Valley Conservation Authority staff and Ducks Unlimited. This area had always stayed wet and acted as a settling pond for the surrounding fields.  A little excavation allowed it to retain that purpose but enhanced it as wildlife habitat. 

This has become a great place for bird watching. One day in the spring, I counted over 20 ducks lift off the pond.  I have also seen killdeers, greater and lesser yellowlegs, spotted sandpipers, Canada geese, and a huge number of red-winged blackbirds. Turtles also love the pond – it is amazing how shy they are and how fast they move. Birding with a water-loving black lab means I need to be a lot faster with the camera if I have a hope of capturing any wildlife photos.

This spring we also participated in Operation Pollinator. We received bags of seed that included an eight-species mix plus one bag of sunflower seed. We planted these seeds in the area around the duck pond. It is amazing to me what plants grow there. Last summer it was dominated by lady’s thumb and I was sure with the amount of seed that was generated, nothing else would ever grow there. However, this summer, the area was purple with common knapweed, which is a European native that has been introduced to Ontario. It is aggressive and hardy, so it generally is not really something that is welcomed. However, on this particular day, the knapweed patch was alive with bees. 

Bees could also fall into that category of something I never really paid much attention to until I hit the magical age of 50. While I have paid attention to planting flower gardens that would be attractive to pollinators, I basically found a design in a book, planted the recommended species, and didn’t give it much thought after that. 

But now I have found a new book - A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee – Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators, written by Lorraine Johnson and Sheila Colla. This book takes thinking about pollinators to a whole new level. I had no idea that there are about 860 different bee species in Canada, with about 350 species in southern Ontario. And scientists are still discovering new species. In 2010, a species that had never been identified before was discovered in downtown Toronto. 

Johnson and Colla raise awareness of the plight of native bees and the importance of native plants for their survival. The namesake of the book, the rusty-patched bumblebee, found commonly up until the 1980s, has almost completely disappeared from Canada and most of the US. It was designated as “endangered” in 2012, the first native Canadian bee to be given this designation. 

I will always be grateful for the opportunity to be involved in this reforestation project. It has led to more learning about our amazing natural world and provided ways for me to open my eyes to things I never had time for in the past. Every time I walk there, it is a new adventure and there is always something new to see. ◊