Birdwatchers are shining their binoculars this month as they gear up for St. Albert’s annual Christmas bird count.
The 22nd annual St. Albert Christmas Bird Count is this Dec. 29. About 150 residents are expected to fan out across the city and much of Sturgeon County that day to catalogue every feathered friend they can see that day as part of a national survey on bird populations.
The St. Albert count covers a 24-kilometre-wide zone centred on the St. Albert Airport.
This year’s count will be a bit cheaper than previous ones due to two recent developments, said count co-ordinator Alan Hingston. First, Bird Studies Canada has dropped a $5-a-head fee it used to charge for bush-beaters to cover the cost of its printed reports. “They’re going all electronic,” he said, so they no longer need this money.
Edmonton’s Wild Birds Unlimited store has also agreed to sponsor the St. Albert count. The store gets a number of St. Albert customers, said owner Janis Chapman, and agreed to chip in to this event when asked. “It’s a really nice morning or afternoon out with people who like to bird.”
Hingston said that he was looking for about 150 volunteers for the count. “I need people to do one of either one of two things,” he said: watch feeders or beat bushes.
Feeder watchers will have to track all the birds that they can spot at their backyard feeders during an hour or so and report them to their zone captains, Hingston said. It’s a good job for beginners. “If you can tell a chickadee, a blue jay and a downy woodpecker (apart), you’re good.”
More adventurous birders will want to head out into the field with the bush beaters, where they will spot more exotic birds such as ravens and snowy owls. Beginners will be paired with veteran birdwatchers for help.
The Gazette’s files indicate that a record 168 people came out to last year’s count and identified some 5,400 birds, including, for the first time, a Eurasian collared dove.
Local birders haven’t reported any new species so far this winter, Hingston said, but have seen snowy owls, rough grouse and American goldfinches around town.
“Even after 22 years, new and unusual birds keep turning up, and if you don’t go look for them, you don’t find them.”
Call Hingston at 780-459-6389 for details.
St. Albert’s new leaf composting program kept about three battle-tanks-worth of junk out of the landfill.
City crews collected about 143.4 tonnes of leaves last October and November as part of its annual fall leaf program — equivalent to about three Leopard tanks and enough to fill 20 garbage trucks. Unlike previous years, these leaves were composted instead of being sent to the landfill.
The city had previously buried these bags of leaves due to the cost of de-bagging them, said solid waste programs co-ordinator Christian Benson. Through the Capital Region Waste Minimization Advisory Committee, the city was able to cut a deal to use Edmonton’s de-bagger and composter at no net cost to the city. “We’re not paying any more, but we’re able to get this material composted properly.”
The city would likely keep composting these bagged leaves in the future, Benson said.
Christmas trees will also be up for collection and composting this January, Benson added. Residents can place their live trees out for collection between Jan. 7 and 18.
“It should be a bare, live tree,” he noted, free of any decorations or wrapping. Trees will be collected along with trash and recycling, so they should be set out before 7 a.m. on your neighbourhood’s collection day.
All trees collected will be chipped and composted, Benson said. Christmas trees can also be dropped off any time at the compost depot on Villeneuve Road.
