Home Care In Birds Landing, CA

At dusk in September, Winifred Wake can often be found sitting on a lawn chair in London, Ont., watching hundreds of birds circle chimneys.

She's counting chimney swifts, threatened tiny black birds that pass through southwestern Ontario during their fall migration journey to Central and South America.

"I think they're a fascinating part of nature," she said. "This time of year, hundreds will spend nights together in old unlined brick chimneys."

Wake is a member of Nature London, a group of 50 volunteers who work to monitor and protect the birds and other species.

The chimney swift is of great interest, as their populations have declined by more than 90 per cent since 1970, according to Birds Canada, landing them on the federal Species at Risk Act list.

Nature London, which is affiliated with Ontario Nature and Nature Canada, monitors 18 chimneys in the city, keeping track of swift populations from year to year.

"They're continuing to decline, and it's important we provide protection for birds," said Wake.

"They're very much dependent on the goodwill of humans to preserve some of these chimneys for them to have habitat to nest in or to rest for the night and roost.

"We don't have as many or any old growth forests with hollow trees where they could nest or roost anymore, so that habitat is gone."

Each bird also eats about 1,000 insects a day, but with insect population in decline, habitat loss and extreme weather, their food source is dwindling.

Hub for chimney swift advocacy

Earlier this week, volunteers counted over 300 swifts at a warehouse sporting chimneys in south London, while another 300 were counted near the downtown. The numbers change day to day as new birds arrive and others continue to migrate.

London has earned a reputation as a hub for chimney swift knowledge and advocacy.

In the past two weeks, wildlife rescues from Quebec and eastern Ontario came to the city to release orphaned chimney swifts with Nature London volunteers.

Connie Black drove to London from north of Kingston, Ont., to release seven orphaned chimney swifts into a group of roosting swifts. She runs a home-based bird rescue, Destined to Fly, focusing on species at risk.

"You have a great group there that actually monitors all the roosts — which we need to know," Black said.

London earned official bird-friendly city status last year by Nature Canada, based on threat reduction, protecting natural habitats and community education.

Wake and her group are part of those efforts.

"London has actually become probably the centre of swift monitoring activities for Ontario," Wake said.

Disrupted food chain

Glenn Berry, a volunteer with Nature London's chimney swift team, knows more needs to be done to protect the birds, which feed on insects.

"We have a bug-hostile world now," he said. "We've been at war with bugs for quite a while, but that's also a food source that's part of the food chain that's been disrupted."

Wake agrees.

"Insect populations have been plummeting, and that is considered a major reason why they're in decline," she said. "People need to be aware that we have responsibilities for caring for the rest of the creatures in the world."

Planting more native species of plants, protecting natural areas and reducing roadside mowing would help, she said.

"Anything people can do to reduce your ecological footprint to help the planet and help swifts is all good."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Reporter

Michelle Both is a reporter and content producer for CBC London. She holds a master's degree in journalism and communication from Western University. You can reach her at [email protected].

An Edmonton-bound Swoop flight was forced to make an emergency landing after it struck a bird.

Officials at Abbotsford Airport, about 55 kilometres east of Vancouver, reported that an aircraft struck a bird after taking off.

The plane landed safely before 9 a.m. PT Tuesday.

“Passengers have been offloaded into the terminal safely,” the airport tweeted. “Updates will be available in the coming hours.”

Swoop later confirmed Flight W0312 landed safely in Abbotsford “due to a bird strike after departure.”

Update: We can confirm Flight 312 landed safely in Abbotsford due to a bird strike shortly after departure. All travellers were offloaded safely and without incident. Thank you to our captain and crew for ensuring the safety of our travellers.

— FlySwoop (@FlySwoop) September 10, 2019

Flight W0312 showed as “delayed” on Swoop’s website.

Passengers on the plane said they heard a loud thud followed by flames coming from an engine immediately after taking off.

"Basically as the aircraft was rolling down the runway, it felt like we hit a bump," said Edmonton man Fadhl Abu-Ghanem. "Next thing I know I start seeing flames coming out of the right engine…I also felt very strong heat... I looked around for a flight attendant and couldn’t find one so I just started yelling 'There’s fire, fire, fire right engine, fire right engine!'"

Abu-Ghanem said everyone started to yell about the flames before the captain made an announcement that the aircraft struck some geese and would be making an emergency landing.

"It was very overwhelming, you don't expect it," said Abu-Ghanem. "I started texting my mom saying 'Something's wrong with the airplane. I love you.'"

Passenger Bruce Mason had a similar reaction and praised the captain and crew for their calm response.

"I've been on a plane before where the tire blew out when it was on take-off. That's pretty benign compared to this," he said. "There's smoke, there's fire and you think 'Well, is this it?'"

Passenger Donna-Lee Rayner said she and others were waiting at the Abbotsford Airport while maintenance crews checked out the plane.

According to the Abbotsford Airport's website, the flight was delayed until 8 p.m. PT.

There were no reported injuries.

There were seven reported bird strikes at Abbotsford International Airport in August of 2019, though none had any documented effect on airport operations, according to Transport Canada.

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An Air Canada flight had a “bit of a hairy landing” at the Ottawa Airport early Thursday after the plane hit a flock of birds.

An Air Canada spokeswoman said that flight AC342, with 170 passengers on board, which was scheduled to arrive from Vancouver at 12:46 a.m., made contact with birds on the descent and “as per our operating procedures airport services were called.”

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“The flight landed safely and no one was hurt,” she added.

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The plane, which made it to the gate at 1:22 a.m., is now in maintenance.

A passenger tweeted “hats off to the Air Canada pilots (and) crew for keeping everything under control” adding that the flight landed safely then sat on the runway for a while as a safety precaution before being towed to the gate.

Bit of a harry landing @FlyYOW tonight after hitting some birds but hats off to the @AirCanada pilots & crew for keeping everything under control. Landed safely & then sat on the runway for awhile as a safety precaution before being towed to the gate. #ottnews

— Mich (@Mich___MB) March 28, 2019

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Another passenger tweeted there was a “huge bang in the port (left) engine 30 seconds before landing.”

My flight hit a flock of birds on final. Huge bang. They shut down the port engine 30 sec before landing. We’ve landed but are surrounded by emergency vehicles. We are parked in the middle… https://t.co/rfAFHyYUti

— Rich Loen (@richloen) March 28, 2019

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Birds equipped with tracking backpack show how species vanishes each fall

Scientists have figured out how a tiny songbird called the blackpoll warbler mysteriously vanishes from most of Canada each fall.

It turns out that when the bird disappears from human sight, it embarks on one of the most amazing migrations in the world.

The blackpoll warbler weighs just 12 grams – less than two loonies. But the new tracking study shows it is capable of flying up to 2,770 kilometres over the western Atlantic Ocean over three days, without stopping to eat or rest.

That's the longest overwater flight for a bird of this size in the world, said Ryan Norris, a biologist at Ontario's University of Guelph.

"We were totally amazed when we found out," said Norris, co-author of a study describing the feat.

The study was published this week in the journal Biology Letters.

The blackpoll warbler breeds in the boreal forest that stretches across Canada from Newfoundland and Labrador to the Yukon, and spends its winter in northeastern South America. On its way north each spring, it passes through Canada's more populated south, singing its distinctive high-pitched song along the way, Norris said.

But each fall, it disappears without a trace from all except the easternmost part of the boreal forest.

"That got people wondering: 'Where do they go in the fall?'"

Reports of blackpoll warblers landing on ships in the Atlantic Ocean during bad weather led some scientists to suspect that perhaps they migrated over water instead of land in the fall. But researchers had no direct evidence.

Finally, a few years ago, a new technology became available to biologists like Norris – tiny tracking devices that could be attached to the back of a blackpoll warbler like a backpack.

The trackers had a mass of just half a gram, making them light enough for a 12-gram bird to carry.

They measure light levels, providing data about latitude from the timing of sunrise and sunset, and about longitude from the timing of solar noon, which varies with longitude.

Unfortunately, the devices need to be physically recovered in order to get the data.

"You can't sit at your desk and monitor the flight of the blackpoll warbler," Norris said. "You have to leave your office the next year and go find the blackpoll warbler, and that can be kind of a needle in a haystack."

Norris later learned that other biologists at the University of Massachusetts had come up with the same idea. The researchers decided to work together – the Canadians tracked birds from Nova Scotia, and the Americans tracked birds from Vermont.

In total, they put geolocators on 37 birds, and managed to recover five the next year.

Average non-stop flight was 2540 km

Those five birds flew an average of 2,540 kilometres during a non-stop flight over the western Atlantic Ocean that averaged 62 hours. The birds landed in the Caribbean, where they spent a few days refuelling before moving on to Venezuela.

Norris said that when he saw the results, "I was jumping up and down… I consider this a 50-year unsolved mystery."

Norris suspects that blackpoll warblers from as far west as the Yukon gather in the Maritimes and New England to make the non-stop flight over the Atlantic Ocean. However, it will take more research to find that out.

Scientists aren't yet sure why the birds do this instead of taking a three-week journey over land, stopping regularly to refuel, as they do in the spring.

Norris says it may be because the non-stop flight makes them less prone to being eaten by predators along the way. The express journey also gets them to their wintering grounds earlier, and that may help them get prime real estate there, with better access to food, for example.

Plane spotters had a whale of a time in St. John's on Wednesday with the arrival of the Airbus Beluga, but no one was blubbering about the cold — it was all fin and games as they watched the giant plane touch down.

The plane, carrying a satellite for British telecommunications company Inmarsat, stopped at St. John's International Airport to refuel before continuing to Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Will Goodridge — a Gander flight student and self-proclaimed aviation enthusiast — was at the airport watching when the Beluga arrived.

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The distinctive Airbus Beluga plane — shaped like the eponymous whale — landed in St. John's on Wednesday, and planespotters were there to see it.

"When you got a plane like the Beluga coming in, as an enthusiast, you got to come up. No question," he said.

He has seen an Airbus Beluga once before, when he was flying in Gander. The Beluga was taking off at that time, and Goodridge still enjoys telling the... tail.

Jillian Rice, Inmarsat's regional human resources director, said this type of aircraft is rare.

"There are actually only five Belugas, not counting the XL Beluga, so it's a rare sighting and it's exciting for us to see this here today," she said.

"Standing next to something that so many of our employees have worked so diligently with Airbus employees on is just a real feeling of pride and accomplishment."

Goodridge said the Airbus Beluga was designed to transport aircraft parts, such as wings. It would transport those components to Airbus's manufacturing plant in France. Now, he said, the Beluga is used for other missions, like delivering satellites.

Plane passion

Goodridge spent five years studying business at Memorial University before applying to flight school because of his lifelong interest in planes.

He isn't sure where his interest comes from — ever since he was a kid, he has just been fascinated — but that passion has lingered for his entire life. And where there's a whale, there's a way.

"Every time I knew there was a cool plane coming to St. John's … I'd always make my way out. And I was always fascinated by it."

Goodridge said he wasn't surprised to see dozens of people at the airport waiting to watch the Beluga land.

"I don't know a single person who doesn't look up in the sky when they hear an airplane," he said.

Rice said excited aircraft enthusiasts can see the Airbus Beluga when it stops to fuel up on the way back to France.

The satellite will be launched at the end of February.

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