Sarnia earns Bird Friendly City designation from Nature Canada

It’s official. Sarnia is a Bird Friendly City.

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Following three years of work by a group of local residents, Sarnia has joined the list of communities with the Nature Canada designation marking dedication to protecting bird populations, reducing threats and fostering public engagement in conservation efforts.

Sarnia joins Uxbridge, Kitchener, and Cornwall as newly certified cities this year, taking the overall total to 30 Canadian communities.

“It’s kind of a feather in our cap,” said John Cooke, chairperson of Bird Friendly Sarnia.

“We’re really happy, really pleased, that we’ve got this far,” he said.

But the work by the 10-member group doesn’t end with an initial designation since it will be up for renewal in two years, he said.

“We’ve got certification,” Cooke said. “Now we can look at what else we can do to improve and maintain the certification in the years going forward.”

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Leading up to the designation, the Sarnia group held an online poll in 2023 that selected the red-headed woodpecker as the city’s official bird. It also promoted a Lights Out initiative to help protect migratory birds and supported bird friendly habitats in urban areas.

“Achieving bird friendly city certification shows Sarnia’s commitment to nurturing bird habitats and ensuring that both residents and birds can thrive,” Autumn Jordan, with Nature Canada, said in a news release.

Nature Canada’s program encourages municipalities to take steps to protect birds from human-related threats, such as window collisions, light pollution and habitat loss.

“We’ve done some work on trying to reduce roaming cats, so we want to solidify that,” Cooke said.

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“We’d like to get a bit more public engagement and understanding of how they can help, what they can do,” such as getting involved in window collision prevention, he said.

The group also wants to continue working with the city “on how its regulations could be more bird friendly,” Cooke said. “Some cities actually have bird friendly development guidelines which should encompass windows and lighting.”

Collisions with windows kill about 25 million birds in Canada a year, and most of those collisions involve homes, according to the Birds Canada website.

Sarnia council gave its support in 2022 to the effort to seek bird friendly designation.

Cooke said the group is meeting with city staff and would like to engage with Sarnia’s environmental advisory committee on potential actions it could take.

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“Many of the things that we’re going to be asking for, or have asked for. . . are along the same lines of many of the other actions the city is taking around environmental planning,” he said

Directing attention to birds is a way to encourage more people to focus on the natural environment, he said.

“When you start taking an interest in birds, you’re also taking an interest in insects, seed plants, native plants,” Cooke said.

The designation can also help tourism by encouraging birders from other areas to visit Sarnia, he said.

“Keen birders” often visit places like Rondeau Provincial Park and Point Pelee, “but frankly you can go to Canatara Park in spring and fall and see most of the same species there,” Cooke said.

“We have a really good place to go birding,” he said. “If we continue to develop the park accordingly, we can continue to attract people to come birding in Sarnia.”

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