The wolverine may be part of the weasel family, but it’s almost bear-like in its looks. And, in its clever survival behaviour. Wolverines are smart enough to target winter trap lines and successfully steal the bait. This mustelid is ferocious and always hungry—for almost anything. It’s the only carnivore that will eat the bones of its prey.
Where does it live?
Most wolverines stick to the Western boreal forests of North America, and, in Canada, the wild alpine areas of Alberta and B.C. (They do carve out habitat in other provinces, including Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.) They’re tough customers, and well-suited to winter, with fur-covered paws to traipse snowshoe-style over deep snow. Although they’ll take down plenty of live prey (again, not picky—they’ll even eat porcupines, ow), in winter, they primarily scavenge. A wolverine will happily chow down on the cold corpses of large mammals (deer, moose) that have died from starvation or frozen to death. The sneakiest will track other carnivores such as wolves and lynx, then steal their unattended leftovers. Not very neighbourly, wolverine!
When do wolverines give birth?
Wolverines only reproduce every two or three years. A mother-to-be is plucky enough to bed down in a den by February—usually underneath a frozen pile of rocks—and have her babies even in the depths of winter. She’ll often only produce a few kits in a litter.
Are they endangered?
Wolverines are listed as a species of special concern. Even though many live much farther north than other mammals, they’re still vulnerable to human encroachment, especially backcountry recreation. According to the Species at Risk Public Registry, wolverine numbers have also dwindled in response to losing certain ungulate prey, in particular, the threatened woodland caribou.
Think of the ptarmigan as a kind of winter-hardy chicken. The alpine-dwelling bird, part of the grouse family, has feathered feet, the better for walking on snow, and plumage well-adapted to keeping it camouflaged year-round. North America has three species of ptarmigan (taar-muh-gnn): the rock ptarmigan, the willow ptarmigan, and the white-tailed ptarmigan (pictured). They’re all chunky-bodied, with short tails, legs, and wings.
What’s unique about this bird?
In winter, all three species are nearly snow white. Unlike other birds, they go through three plumage changes during the year. (Other species typically have only breeding plumage in spring and summer, and their drabber, non-breeding colours come winter.) As the snow starts to melt, ptarmigans begin to moult their white feathers into a barred pattern, starting from the head and progressing towards the tail. By mid-summer, males and females look nearly identical. Then, as the summer turns to fall, both turn more and more grey. The process is barely complete before the birds begin moulting back to white again.
How do they survive winter?
Winter is a lean time for the ptarmigan. Food sources are low, and the birds are limited to the few plants growing above the snow—they eat the seeds, buds, and twigs of low shrubs. Willow ptarmigans, in particular, are very good at balancing on spindly branches of higher shrubs to get at the catkins and other goodies. The rock ptarmigan, on the other hand, prefers to scratch down into the snow to get at buried vegetation such as purple saxifrage. This avian is also smart enough to take advantage of the craters dug by caribou and muskoxen. Interestingly, research shows that each ptarmigan species has evolved a slightly different bill size and shape to allow it to successfully feed through the winter.
But can they fly?
In the spring, ptarmigan chicks hatch in their shallow nests; it can take an entire day for a baby to break out of its shell. Then, it eats its own yolk sac for protein. Uh, yum? Within a few days, chicks can scurry, mouse-like, along the ground. By the time they’re a week old, they can fly—though they’re very clumsy. They get better at it, of course. (Less chicken-like.) Flying skills become especially important for our northern-dwelling adult rock ptarmigans. Some migrate as far as 800 km in a year, making them the most nomadic of the grouse species.
The Pacific Ocean’s sea otter is way cooler than its semiaquatic cousin, the river otter. Or no, maybe it’s warmer. Sea otters have the distinction of being the North American mammal with the thickest fur of all—one million hairs covering every inch of their bodies. Why? Unlike a sea lion or a walrus, a sea otter has very little blubber, that crucial layer of cushy fat designed to keep a body toasty in the coldest of waters.
Sea otter vs. river otter
No surprise: sea otters and river otters are very similar. But if you were to see them side-by-side, you could clearly spot the differences. Sea otters are much larger—think, up to 100 pounds compared to a river otter’s measly 30. Check out the tails. A sea otter’s tail is short and flat; a river otter’s? Long and pointed. And then there’s the fur. A sea otter is covered with a dense layer that fades to tan on the face and throat. River otters, on the other hand, tend to be dark brown all over.
The sea otter is aquatic, not semiaquatic. It can spend its entire life in the water, foraging for kelp-eating sea urchins and other slow-moving ocean creatures. Sea otters even sleep in the water, floating on their backs and holding each other’s hands—er, paws—to keep from drifting apart. Adorbs!
Is the sea otter endangered?
Canada’s population is happily in slightly better shape than sea otters worldwide. B.C.’s otters were declared extinct in 1929 (because of overhunting for the fur trade). Since this marine mammal is considered a keystone species, vital to the kelp forest ecosystem, the B.C. government reintroduced 89 otters into Checleset Bay in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Now, their numbers have surpassed 6,500. Consequently, in Canada, the species is listed as Special Concern—not great, but better than Endangered.
Every winter when Lake Suwa in Japan freezes, locals believe that the Shinto male god Takeminakata crosses the frozen lake with his dragon to visit the female god Yasakatome. He leaves only his footsteps on the ice in the form of a sinusoidal ice ridge called the omiwatari.
In 1397, Shinto priests began celebrating and recording the appearance of the omiwatari. They used the direction of the cracks left by the omiwatari to forecast the agricultural harvest for the upcoming summer. In the first 250 years of the ice record, Lake Suwa froze every year, except for three years during which time the region saw widespread famine. Since the turn of the millennium, however, the lake has only frozen seven times.
If the ice cover in northern lakes continues to decline at the same pace, it will have severe ecological and cultural consequences.
Lakes in the Northern Hemisphere are losing their ice cover faster than ever. (Midge Eliassen), Author provided
Lakes losing ice at rapid rates
Ice duration was more than two weeks shorter per century, on average, since the Industrial Revolution, with lakes losing up to 34 per cent of their total ice cover. In the past 25 years, the loss of ice escalated with lakes losing ice six times faster than any other period in the past 100 years.
Around 15,000 lakes, including Lake Suwa and the North American Great Lakes — Lake Michigan and Lake Superior — are beginning to remain ice-free in some winters. Lakes situated at lower latitudes and in some coastal regions, where winter air temperatures hover around 0 C (the freshwater freezing point) in addition to large, deep lakes in colder regions, are most sensitive to experiencing ice-free winters.
Large, deep lakes, such as the North American Great Lakes, require sustained cold temperatures to sufficiently cool their waters to allow ice to form, as deeper lakes take longer to cool in autumn due to their immense thermal mass.
Larger lakes with a longer fetch — the area over which the wind blows — also tend to freeze later because they are more sensitive to increased wind action breaking up the initial skim of ice on the lake surface.
Why does ice loss matter?
Lake Superior is one of the fastest warming lakes in the world. Since 1867, it has lost over two months of ice cover. By removing the “lid” of ice, evaporation rates can increase in Lake Superior, as well many other lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, further affecting water availability. As lakes transition to becoming ice-free and the physical barrier between the lake surface and the atmosphere is removed, the potential for evaporation to occur year-round increases.
Less ice cover, warmer temperatures, and increased storm events deliver more nutrients to the lakes, leading to widespread summer blue-green algal blooms, also known as cyanobacterial blooms, which were once thought to be implausible in the cold, deep and pristine waters of Lake Superior.
In some lakes, algal blooms are becoming particularly thick, decreasing the amount of sunlight that reaches deeper waters. With less sunlight, photosynthesis is reduced, ultimately leading to a decrease in the concentration of dissolved oxygen available to support aquatic life.
Some fish communities rely on long winters. For example, following short winters, Lake Erie yellow perch produced smaller eggs and weaker young fish that were less likely to survive to adulthood. Fish life stages most sensitive to temperature changes in the earlier part of the open-water season include embryos and spawning adults. Furthermore, an earlier start to summer (i.e., due to earlier ice loss) can cause mismatches in the timing of critical activities, such as spawning and foraging, often with widespread ramifications across the food web.
Reducing greenhouse gases and slowing down climate change is the only way to save lake ice cover, and protect the local ecology and culture that depends on it. (Johanna Korhonen), Author provided
Our research has shown that the global decline of lake ice cover in recent decades can only be explained by increased greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution. There is no magic solution beyond limiting greenhouse gas emissions to slow climate change and ultimately preserve lake ice cover.
For northern communities, ice cover provides a way of life in the winter. Countless Canadian kids have learned how to skate and play hockey at nearby lakes, local ponds, and backyard ice rinks, just as hockey legend, Wayne Gretzky, did in Brantford, Ont. Warmer winters are contributing to shorter outdoor ice hockey and skating seasons.
Ice fishing tournaments are increasingly cancelled, with widespread consequences for local economies. For example, the winter ice fishing season in Lake Winnipeg alone generates over $200 million each year.
The ice ridges on Lake Suwa form an integral part of the community’s spiritual traditions and culture. (Satoe Kasahara), Author provided
Finally, for the Shintos living in Suwa, protecting ice cover is essential to preserving the spiritual traditions maintained by generations of Shinto priests. At current rates of greenhouse gas emissions, climate projections predict that the lake will rarely freeze in the very near future, and following 2040 will never freeze again.
However, slowing climate change and limiting temperature increases below 1.5 C will allow Takeminakata to periodically cross the frozen lake to visit Yasakatome as he has done for centuries.
The Northern cardinal is a cheery pop of colour against the winter landscape. Unlike so many other bird species, cardinals don’t moult their bright red plumage, so they stand out at bird feeders year-round. They’re one of North America’s most recognizable species—who can’t ID a cardinal? Even the females have a sharp, spikey crest and a cherry-coloured beak. Pretty, pretty bird!
The Northern cardinal is unusual for another reason: it’s one of the few female songbirds that actually sings (usually in spring and summer, on the nest). Ornithologists believe this may tell their male partners when to bring them food. (“I want pickles and ice cream! Right now!”) A female Northern cardinal also typically sings longer and more complex tunes than the male—again, unusual in the bird world.
In winter, cardinals are largely quiet. But they do form large flocks, for foraging—sometimes they’ll gather with other species such as dark-eyed juncos and white-throated sparrows. They’re pretty easy to attract to winter bird feeders; with no insects to hunt for, they’ll eat almost any seed you put out. (That said, they’re big fans of black-oil sunflower seeds.)
Although mated pairs that hooked up the previous spring will often stay together for the winter, about one fifth of couplings break up by the time the next breeding season rolls around. Aww, divorce sucks. Newly split, both male and females are ready to find a new mate.
Have you ever seen a cardinal attacking its own reflection—in mirrors or car windows, for example? That’s because in spring and early summer, both males and females obsessively and fiercely defend their territories. Including from themselves. A cardinal isn’t smart enough to realize that it’s fighting its own reflection, and will attack a shiny surface for hours.
This essay about the chickadee was originally published as part of “The Great Canadian Creature Feature” in the June/July issue of Cottage Life.
Chickadees are so abundant at backyard feeders and neighbourhood parks across Canada, it’s easy to forget that they are wild animals that live in almost every treed habitat in our country. Perhaps you’ve even seen one and thought, It’s just a chickadee. It’s a common bird, but that familiar sight is also an extraordinary one. Not only are chickadees an animal we can get close to, they are so emblematic of what it takes to thrive here that they deserve a new title: Canada’s National Animal.
Let’s start up close, because we can bond with chickadees. They make eye contact, and if you can whistle, you can have a conversation with one; they will respond. As children, we learn to sing with them, “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee.” And if we’re patient, they will come to our hands.
Chickadees are the central characters in my earliest wildlife memories. As a kid, I spent winter afternoons in our local forest holding out handfuls of sunflower seeds and willing them to come. I would stand until my fingers froze and my outstretched arm shook from the effort. Chickadees taught me the patience and stillness I would need when I became a guide and naturalist later in life, and I have never tired of them. As an adult, I return to the same forest, still waiting to feel the pinpricks of their tiny nails against my cold fingers.
By feeding chickadees healthy seeds, we can deepen our connection with them and help them to survive the winter and improve their reproductive success. Yet they don’t become dependent on us—they never forget how to forage for themselves. Chickadees don’t migrate. They can handle winter—an essential trait for a national animal—and though they only weigh as much as two quarters, they can induce a controlled state of hypothermia to survive the cold nights. By morning, they’ll be flitting around again, drinking fresh water from melting icicles.
While these birds are charismatic and approachable, they’re also tough enough to meet the demands of Canada’s huge and wide-ranging habitats. They have some nifty adaptations to help with this: their legs are so strong that they can feed hanging upside down; they have extraordinary spatial memory for the food that they cache; and they use at least 16 different vocalizations including the intense “high zee” which warns of predators so effectively that other species of birds also listen and react. Like many songbirds, chickadees are short-lived (they rarely see their fourth birthday) and experience about 50 per cent mortality in their first year. One of their main strategies to survive the hardships of their short lives is the very thing that makes them so remarkable: curiosity. You only have to watch a chickadee for half an hour to see this for yourself. They never stop learning, and that—more than any other trait—is what makes them my top choice for Canada. They are always exploring. This makes them more than an animal we can learn about; it makes them a companion we can learn from.
Zoom out from the cute little bird at your feeder and look at a map of Canada. You’ll find chickadees everywhere, in every province and territory: in Haida Gwaii, the Arctic coast, the fjords of Labrador, southwestern Nunavut, and downtown Toronto. We have five species: black-capped, mountain, gray-headed, boreal, and chestnut-backed. Between them, they have evolved to live in every major forest type in our country. They are all cavity nesters and partially dependent on tree seeds for winter forage, but they push those habitat requirements to the limit: some live at high elevations, others on the edges of the tundra.
So we might get to know chickadees for how common they are—our companion in nature, our national bird in the hand—but our moments with them might also be the closest encounters we will ever have with a wild animal. When you look one in the eye, you will see tenacity, intelligence, and poise— and an animal that knows our country better than we do.
Facts & Figures
How do you like my outfit? As with most birds that brave Canadian winters, chickadees can fluff out their feathers and trap a layer of insulating air around their bodies.
A tall tale: Chickadees have long legs—longer than other perching birds.
Nothing says love like bugs: Courting male chickadees present females with large insects—protein, yum!—in order to woo them.
Read more essays from “The Great Canadian Creature Feature” to read more of our favourite writers making the case for their pick for the most Canadian animal in the June/July 2021 issue of Cottage Life.
There is no fox better equipped to handle chilly weather than the Arctic fox—a.k.a. the white fox. Canada’s smallest canid may weigh as little as 3 lbs, but it’s hardy enough to withstand temperatures as low as -50°C. It’s literally built for the cold, with a heavy white coat in the winter, a compact body, and a bushy tail that makes up about 30 per cent of its total body length. The Arctic fox uses that tail like a shawl to wrap around itself when sleeping.
In Canada, the Arctic fox’s range stretches from the northern tip of Ellesmere Island to the southern tip of James Bay. A carnivore, it survives mostly on a diet of lemmings. Foxes with whelps to feed will hunt up to 15 times per night—usually between 4 p.m. and mid-morning the next day. In open areas of tundra, adults catch their prey by chasing and pouncing. But an Arctic fox is smart enough to know how to locate an underground lemming nest, and will dig through the snow to get at it.
What do the foxes do when there are no lemmings?
Since an Arctic fox is so dependent on its lemming food source, the species’ numbers fluctuate with the lemming population. And the lemming population is known to “crash” and then peak. In a crash year, foxes will leave their usual hunting territories and wander for hundreds of kilometres, nomad-like, searching for food. This makes them vulnerable to fatigue and extreme cold—no den to hunker down inside—not to mention, starvation. Consequently, when lemming numbers are low, so are Arctic fox numbers.
White foxes are sometimes blue
The Arctic fox only keeps its snowy-white coat for the winter (just like the snowshoe hare). By May, it begins to shed its heavy fur in place of a thinner, two-tone brown outfit. Some Arctic foxes have a blue-toned coat in the winter; they shed that for a blue-grey coat in the summer. “Blue” foxes appear in almost every Arctic fox population. In Canada, they make up about five per cent of the population; in Greenland, meanwhile, about 50 per cent of white foxes are blue foxes. So…the foxes in Greenland are blue? Huh. Ironic.
This essay about the coywolf was originally published as part of “The Great Canadian Creature Feature” in the June/July issue of Cottage Life.
Animals are oblivious to national borders. Their habitats pay no heed to lines on a map; birds and herds migrate across them at will. They were roaming the landscape long before those lines were drawn anyway. No nation can ever truly lay claim to any one beast as its national animal.
The coywolf is, quite possibly, the only known exception to this rule. It is the rarest of breeds: a new species of hybrid origin, a mammal forged before our eyes. The coywolf is younger than zoology, younger than even Canada itself, having emerged only in the last 75 to 100 years.
The coywolf’s origins trace deep into Canada’s cottaging heartland. In the early 20th century, as North America’s population grew and its landscape was colonized, the eastern wolf population (Canis lycaons) was hit hard. Facing a habitat squeeze and eradication campaigns, the wolves headed north from the eastern seaboard and the St. Lawrence lowlands. By the 1950s their few remaining numbers had found safe haven in and around Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. That’s when they met up with some western coyotes (Canis latrans) who, facing similar habitat pressures, had migrated from the American midwest and the central plains region of Canada.
So began the greatest-ever dirty weekend in the history of cottage country. For the coyotes, it was probably not love at first sight. The western gray wolf (Canis lupus) kills coyotes, so the idea of getting cozy with its eastern cousin probably seemed a bit dodgy. But eastern wolves, being significantly smaller than western ones, were a lot less intimidating. They were also eagerly seeking to diversify the gene pool, so they’d have been in a welcoming frame of mind. Plus both were new to the area, and there’s no better icebreaker than “where you from?”
The courtship turned out to be quick, and the marriage mind-blowingly successful. Their offspring are acknowledged by scientists as a species of hybrid origin: zoologists call them “eastern coyotes” and the rest of us call them “coywolves.” (For taxonomy nerds, they are known as “Canis latrans var.,” or “coyote variant.”) Coywolf is the better name, given that the species is a perfect fusion of its ancestors’ inherent traits, to the point of practically wielding mutant superpowers.
The coywolf’s size falls somewhere between wolves and coyotes, weighing in at roughly 45 pounds on average—small enough for stealth and agility, but big enough to throw its weight around. They can be loners or travel in packs. They can hunt together to take down deer, or subsist happily on rabbits, birds, and berries, or shop for groceries, ie., raid a chicken coop.
But perhaps their most remarkable trait is their habitat adaptability: they can live anywhere. And at a time when the combined pressures of ongoing habitat loss and accelerating climate change are putting more and more species at risk, the coywolf is kicking everybody’s ass. Like wolves, they are comfortable in the wild, but like coyotes, they’re not perturbed by human settlement. They happily nest and hunt amid rolling hills, farmland, and even in urban areas. Across eastern Canada and the New England states and as far south as Virginia, the “coyotes” people keep seeing in their backyards are most likely Algonquin Park coywolves, busy reconquering the continent.
So in addition to being made in this country, the coywolf’s traits are clearly and distinctively Canadian. We all love our big-city amenities, as well as the joys of escaping them. We know how to nest in any habitat; there’s no landscape we can’t call home. We can get along with just about anyone, and we believe there is strength in diversity. Truly, we are all coywolves.
Facts & figures
Let’s talk about sex, baby: Unlike some other hybrid species—mules, hinnies, ligres—coywolves are fertile and can reproduce.
And the winner is… Scientists call coywolves “the most adaptable mammals on the planet.”
A wolf in alternate clothing: For a long time, people thought coywolves were just large coyotes.
Read more essays from “The Great Canadian Creature Feature” to read more of our favourite writers making the case for their pick for the most Canadian animal in the June/July 2021 issue of Cottage Life.
This essay about the coywolf was originally published as part of “The Great Canadian Creature Feature” in the June/July issue of Cottage Life.
Animals are oblivious to national borders. Their habitats pay no heed to lines on a map; birds and herds migrate across them at will. They were roaming the landscape long before those lines were drawn anyway. No nation can ever truly lay claim to any one beast as its national animal.
The coywolf is, quite possibly, the only known exception to this rule. It is the rarest of breeds: a new species of hybrid origin, a mammal forged before our eyes. The coywolf is younger than zoology, younger than even Canada itself, having emerged only in the last 75 to 100 years.
The coywolf’s origins trace deep into Canada’s cottaging heartland. In the early 20th century, as North America’s population grew and its landscape was colonized, the eastern wolf population (Canis lycaons) was hit hard. Facing a habitat squeeze and eradication campaigns, the wolves headed north from the eastern seaboard and the St. Lawrence lowlands. By the 1950s their few remaining numbers had found safe haven in and around Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. That’s when they met up with some western coyotes (Canis latrans) who, facing similar habitat pressures, had migrated from the American midwest and the central plains region of Canada.
So began the greatest-ever dirty weekend in the history of cottage country. For the coyotes, it was probably not love at first sight. The western gray wolf (Canis lupus) kills coyotes, so the idea of getting cozy with its eastern cousin probably seemed a bit dodgy. But eastern wolves, being significantly smaller than western ones, were a lot less intimidating. They were also eagerly seeking to diversify the gene pool, so they’d have been in a welcoming frame of mind. Plus both were new to the area, and there’s no better icebreaker than “where you from?”
The courtship turned out to be quick, and the marriage mind-blowingly successful. Their offspring are acknowledged by scientists as a species of hybrid origin: zoologists call them “eastern coyotes” and the rest of us call them “coywolves.” (For taxonomy nerds, they are known as “Canis latrans var.,” or “coyote variant.”) Coywolf is the better name, given that the species is a perfect fusion of its ancestors’ inherent traits, to the point of practically wielding mutant superpowers.
The coywolf’s size falls somewhere between wolves and coyotes, weighing in at roughly 45 pounds on average—small enough for stealth and agility, but big enough to throw its weight around. They can be loners or travel in packs. They can hunt together to take down deer, or subsist happily on rabbits, birds, and berries, or shop for groceries, ie., raid a chicken coop.
But perhaps their most remarkable trait is their habitat adaptability: they can live anywhere. And at a time when the combined pressures of ongoing habitat loss and accelerating climate change are putting more and more species at risk, the coywolf is kicking everybody’s ass. Like wolves, they are comfortable in the wild, but like coyotes, they’re not perturbed by human settlement. They happily nest and hunt amid rolling hills, farmland, and even in urban areas. Across eastern Canada and the New England states and as far south as Virginia, the “coyotes” people keep seeing in their backyards are most likely Algonquin Park coywolves, busy reconquering the continent.
So in addition to being made in this country, the coywolf’s traits are clearly and distinctively Canadian. We all love our big-city amenities, as well as the joys of escaping them. We know how to nest in any habitat; there’s no landscape we can’t call home. We can get along with just about anyone, and we believe there is strength in diversity. Truly, we are all coywolves.
Facts & figures
Let’s talk about sex, baby: Unlike some other hybrid species—mules, hinnies, ligres—coywolves are fertile and can reproduce.
And the winner is… Scientists call coywolves “the most adaptable mammals on the planet.”
A wolf in alternate clothing: For a long time, people thought coywolves were just large coyotes.
Read more essays from “The Great Canadian Creature Feature” to read more of our favourite writers making the case for their pick for the most Canadian animal in the June/July 2021 issue of Cottage Life.
If you’re looking for something fun to do with the kids this season or want to up your wintertime bird feeding game, decorate a tree in your yard with some DIY edible decorations. You may also get some squirrel or deer visitors; which are an extra visual bonus for the kids.
“What I think is fun about this idea is that you turn just filling up your bird feeder every day into a family activity,” says Jody Allair, Director, Community Engagement at Birds Canada. He says it’s a festive thing to do that goes beyond your typical decorating and becomes something the birds will appreciate. It’s also a way to build connections to the natural world. “We need more of those,” he says. “This is a great arts and crafts project to do as a family, and the reward is having birds in your yard.” It’s win-win for you and the birds.
First, pick a tree in your yard. Allair says it doesn’t have to be a conifer – even a bush will suffice. Speaking of trees, he also says once you’re done with your real Christmas tree, instead of putting it in the dump or in the garbage, you could ‘plant’ it outside once you’ve removed the tinsel, garland, and decorations. Of course the stump won’t take root in the frozen ground, but its branches can offer additional habitat for animals.
And since you’re doing all this to help the birds, “there are important elements to keep in mind to create a bird-friendly environment,” say Allair. “Don’t place the food or items in an area where birds are going to collide with the windows. Be strategic.” Also, if you have cats, keep them inside or on a leash. For anything you wish to hang, use natural string (the thicker the better he says); never use fishing line. “Natural string that can break down in the sun after a few months is fine.”
Now to the fun part. Here are five DIY feeder ideas you can make yourself this winter:
Hang bird-friendly Christmas cookies. Use this recipe from Birds Canada. Let your kids choose which shapes they’ll want their cookies to be.
Love blue jays? Give them peanuts, or peanut butter. “The best way to present them is with a peanut wreath, or Allair says you could simply string them together and hang them up. “They’re crazy for peanuts.”
Pinecone feeders. Go for a nature walk and gather some pinecones (not spruce, though, as Allair says they’re too soft). Tie on a string for hanging them up, then add peanut butter. (Allair says regular popular store brands are okay.) The hearty, rigid cones have lots of openings to fill.
Make your own suet balls or cakes. These offer a lot of messy DIY fun for kids. Allair recommends using large plastic margarine tubs to keep the mess at a minimum – unless you like lard all over the place. “It’s fun to roll the suet in seeds,” he says. Which type is best? Allair recommends black oil sunflower seeds – they have a high fat content, which birds need, and all species of birds are able to open them (no nutcracker required).
Log feeder. If you’ve got some hollow branches on hand, you can hang those, filled with peanut butter. “The birds will pluck out the peanut butter,” he says.
The main goal for each of these is to provide things the birds would like to eat in the natural world, “but you’re presenting it in a festive way,” he says.
You can also DIY a more traditional bird feeder and fill it with seed. To attract cardinals, include some sunflower seeds inside. Cardinals are “robust and like the perch,” Allair says, so they’ll need a sturdy structure where they can enjoy their meal.
If you provide a mix of food, you can expect chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, blue jays, and hairy woodpeckers.
Once your tree’s all decorated, relax with some hot chocolate by the fire and watch for visitors that stop by to admire – and eat – the outdoor decorations.
Know someone that’s an avid birdwatcher? Allair says Birds Canada’s Project Feeder Watch program makes a great last-minute gift.
