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As we enter a new year, Kris, Dave and Staff would like to wish all our customers who continue to support The Wild Bird Store a very Happy New Year.  The backyard birding community continues to grow with more and more Albertans enjoying the many benefits of feeding, housing and viewing wild birds during these challenging times.

The showroom continues to remain open with some restrictions which may continue to be re-evaluated and we remind customers if they are not comfortable shopping in store that we over some alternatives such as:

CURBSIDE PICK UP

HOME DELIVERY

OR VISITING OUR SEED TRUCK AT OUR LOCATION IN THE NORTHWEST

Providing quality birding supplies and seed while focusing on education continues while the safety of our staff and customers remains our priority.

HAPPY BIRDING!

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A Black-capped chickadee often hides berries and seeds under leaves or in the crevices of bark, and is able to remember these locations for as long as a month. The hippocampus (the spatial memory part of the brain) is proportionally larger in Chickadees and other caching birds than in birds that do not cache food.  This allow them to remember where they hide food for successful retrieval later.

Being an adaption to changing social flocks and changes in the environment, Black-capped chickadees allow brain cells with old information to die off in the autumn, then replacing them with new brain cells.

A group of Chickadees is known as a “banditry” or a “dissimulation” of Chickadees.  The collective noun “banditry” probably came from the bird’s black cap that resembles a bandit’s mask.

On cold winter nights, these birds can reduce their body temperature by as much as 12 degrees centigrade (from their normal temperature of about 42 degrees centigrade) to conserve energy.

Chickadees have physiological and ecological adaptations for winter survival such as nocturnal hypothermia, the reduction of their body temperature over night; thermogenesis, shivering to produce heat; over-wintering in heterospecific birds flocks, commonly with Woodpeckers and Nuthatches; foraging at lower heights for increased wind protection, and caching, storing food in autumn for later consumption during the winter.

Shivering in order to survive is essential as there is only 2cm between the harsh winter conditions and their body cores. Thermogenesis can be identified as an initial response to colder temperature.  As the season progresses, the Chickadees’ shivering bursts increase in frequency, mean duration and magnitude.

RESEARCH: Susan Sharbaugh is a biologist and a huge fan of the Black-capped chickadee, one of the most unlikely residents of the north because of the difficulty of keeping a tiny body warm in a very cold place. She has spent many winter nights trying to find out how a creature as light as a handful of paperclips survived temperatures of 40 degrees below zero.

When darkness fell one night, she attached the first transmitter, and ventured into the woods with former UAP biologist Tom Hahn, a receiver in an insulated bag, and an antenna that resembled a green ping-pong paddle.

Sharbaugh and Hahn followed the beeping signal to a birch tree with a broken top.  They returned at twilight the next afternoon to see the Chickadee diving into a hole on the tree the size of a quarter.

They had found a roost, a place where the Chickadee wedged itself, puffed its feathers, turned its internal thermostat down 15 degrees Fahrenheit, and burned fat all night. 

Finding a roost is just as critical, if not more critical, than finding food.  Chickadees have to find a good and insulated place to spend the night because they are so small.

After discovering the first roost, she found the roosts of several other Black-capped chickadees.  Using diced peanuts as a lure, Sharbaugh recaptured the birds to remove their transmitters, which have a battery life of about three weeks.

DONATIONS

Located at The Wild Bird Store (near the seed bins). We collect your cash  as well as “wishlist” donations and arrange to deliver them to local wildlife organizations including Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation, Alberta Institute of Conservation and Ellis Bird Farm.

We ask for your support quarterly for each of these organizations. 

For December 2021 and January, February 2022 your donations will go to:

Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society

https//:calgarywildlife.org

A Pelican with an injured wing was unable to migrate from Frank Lake

Dr. Brian Keating confirmed after talking with fellow Alberta naturalists Chris Fisher and Greg Wager, their best guess as to how Elsa, an American white pelican (named after the main character in the Disney movie “Frozen”) was injured and forced to remain at Frank Lake, east of High River, is that she/he was injured by a natural predator (like a coyote or eagle), a hunter’s buckshot or by hitting a power line.

Warm treated effluent from Cargill and the Town of High River keeps a small section of the channel to the lake free from ice.

A population of introduced fish called Prussian carp (related to goldfish), which are in huge numbers in the lake and always swarming around that inflow pipe, have enabled Elsa to find food.

It has been confirmed that Elsa can sit on a rock beside the in-flow….and when hungry, just lean over and scoop up the fish.

                            Photo of Elsa taken by John Reasbeck

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Options for shopping at the Wild Bird Store

2022

Saturday, January 8, 2022 INGLEWOOD BIRD SANCTUARY

(9:00am meet at Inglewood Sanctuary 9th Avenue S.E.)

Ticket price:  $6.00 +GST +fees

Ticket must be purchased through Eventbrite.ca — 2022 WBS bird walks

PLEASE NOTE: Proof of vaccinations must be presented prior to any bird walk

                              Face masks must be worn at all times during the walks.

Saturday, January 22, 2022 SNOWY OWL PROWL

(9:00am meet at the back of The Wild Bird Store)

This is an all day trip until about 3:30pm.  Please bring your own lunch.

Maximum of 8 participants.  Driving—remember to fill your gas tank

Ticket price: $6.00 +GST +fees

Tickets must be purchased through Eventbrite.ca — 2022 WBS bird walks

PLEASE NOTE: Proof of vaccinations must be presented prior to any bird walk

                              Face masks must be worn at all times during the walks

Saturday, February 5, 2022 PEARCE ESTATES

(9:00am meet at Fish Hatchery 1440 17A Street S.E.)

Ticket price:  $6.00 +GST +fees

Ticket must be purchased through Eventbrite.ca — 2022 WBS bird walks

PLEASE NOTE:  Proof of vaccination must be presented prior to any bird walk

                               Face masks must be worn at all times during the walks

To ensure you get what you want, please have your order in by 5:00pm on Tuesday and we will set it aside for you

Text us @ (403) 701-4571 or email us at orders@wildbirdstore.ca so we can put your order aside.

Earn and redeem customer loyalty points on

The Bird Seed Truck

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Go to YouTube, type in the search bar “The Wild Bird Store” to watch our videos and to help us become more visible .  Be sure to click on “Subscribe” before you leave the page.

New Year’s 2022 STORE HOURS

Friday, December 31st close at 2:00pm

Closed Saturday January 1, 2022

Re-open Monday, January 3rd at 10:00am