For bird emergencies, contact Safe Wings Ottawa at 613-216-8999 or the Ottawa Valley Wild Bird Care Centre at 613-828-2849.

About Ottawa Birding

Ottawa has a rich and varied birding community with a long history dating from the middle of the 19th century. Amateurs and professionals — from Percy Taverner and Earl Godfrey through to today’s feeder caretakers and Safe Wings volunteers — have done everything from founding national institutions to having fun at an Audubon Christmas Bird Count. OFNC members are an integral part of this history.

Recent Bird Sightings

Visit our Recent Bird Sightings page to see reports and photos on birds sighted in the Ottawa area. We encourage everyone to report their bird sightings on eBird for the benefit of the entire birding community.

Birding Questions

Click the question below to see the answer.

There are a number of resources to help you identify bird:

  • All About Birds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
  • Merlin — a free app that features the best of community contributed photos, songs, and calls, tips from experts around the world to help you ID the birds you see, and range maps from Birds of the World—all powered by billions of bird observations submitted to eBird.
  • Dendroica — an interactive website developed to help students, volunteers and professionals improve their skills at identifying birds by sight or by sound, particularly so that they can participate in nature survey and monitoring programs. The site includes birds from throughout the Western Hemisphere. Participants can contribute new photographs and sound recordings so it will continue to improve over time.
  • Larkwire —a for-purchase app that is a complete, game-based learning system for mastering bird sounds designed for both beginners and advanced birders.
  • Xeno-canto — this dataset covers the sounds of the Aves sound collection of Xeno-canto (“XC”). Xeno-canto (XC) is an online database and sound archive that provides access to sound recordings of wildlife from around the world. The recordings are shared by a worldwide growing community of thousands of recordists, amateurs and professionals alike.
  • You can also get help identifying birds you’ve seen by contacting sightings[at]ofnc.ca

Now that you are set to head off, the question is where to go. Ottawa has plenty of varied habitats that make for good birding all year round. You might want to start with the OFNC feeders at Fletcher Wildlife Garden which are maintained year round, and during the winter, at the Museum of Nature at 1740 Pink Road in Gatineau. You might want to try to discover favourite spots of your own. This will give you a good start: Where to go Birding Around Ottawa.

Perhaps you want to have an idea of what birds of note are being seen in the area. The OFNC publishes a weekly birding report that you might check regularly. You are also encouraged to report birds that you have seen at sightings[at]ofnc.ca.

Another source of what birds are being or could be seen can be found on eBird. eBird is a real-time, online checklist program. It has revolutionized the way that the birding community reports and accesses information about birds. Launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, eBird provides rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. When using this tool, please be aware of Reporting Sensitive Species on eBird.

In 1977, a series of articles in Trail & Landscape described a strategy to see 200 bird species within the OFNC study area in a single year. Although some things described in those articles remain the same, much has changed. The resources available now have revolutionized birding. Also, some once favoured areas no longer exist or are now rarely visited. Other new areas have become important hot spots. Some species have declined, and others are now more common.

Thanks to Greg Zbitnew this is an update/rewrite of that series. The articles also appeared in Trail and Landscape but are consolidated here to help in achieving the 250 species target.

Trying to see as many bird species as possible in a single year in a specific area is quite a popular sport among birders. Although sometimes it can be a bit of work, it is actually quite a fun project. Aside from motivating you to get outside on a regular basis, it can be quite educational as you make efforts to identify more challenging species and learn about different areas to visit. If you can find a friend or group of friends to go out with, you can turn it into a friendly “competition” and a pleasant social event as well, and it is well known that you try harder if you have to keep up with someone else.

The challenge has been changed from “200” to “250” only to emphasize what is possible for an experienced birder with a lot of time available. The articles are really intended to describe a strategy to MAXIMIZE the number of species you can observe in a year in the most efficient way. The exact total is not as important as knowing how to do better than you might have without spending more time. This strategy puts you where the birds are and at the right time.

Here are the links to take you to these great articles. These articles coupled with Where to Go Birding will be some valuable tools out in the field. Good Birding!

Part 1: January to March

Part 2: April to June

Part 3: July to September

Part 4: October to December

The first rule is to always respect wildlife, the environment, and other people. Birdwatching and nature photography are becoming ever more popular. The Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club’s Birds Committee and the RA Photo Club Nature Group suggest the following guidelines so that disturbance to birds and other wildlife is minimized and so that all can enjoy the birds.

Click here to read more about the Code of Conduct for birders, birdwatchers, hikers, and photographers.

For bird emergencies, contact Safe Wings Ottawa at 613-216-8999 or the Ottawa Valley Wild Bird Care Centre at 613-828-2849.

Bird Records Subcommittee

The general purpose of the Bird Records Subcommittee (BRSC) is to provide a pool of technical expertise for OFNC members. The BRSC maintains a database that documents rare bird occurrences and serves as an educational resource for the club. Meetings are open to all members of the OFNC.

Any documentation of an unusual sighting is retained permanently in the subcommittee files. The subcommittee meets two or three times a year to review these submissions, which are in turn used to produce our checklists.

An example of historic documentation maintained by the BRSC is the Shrike Database that contains 103,466 bird sightings submitted by club members January 1, 1981 through May 31, 1986.

Christmas Bird Count

The Birds Committee organizes the Ottawa contribution to the annual coordinated by Birds Canada.

Started in 1900, the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is North America’s longest-running Citizen Science project. People in more than 2000 locations throughout the Western Hemisphere participate in the CBC each year. For more information visit Audubon Christmas Bird Count and Bird Canada Christmas Bird Counts.

The OFNC has participated continuously since 1920. In recent years the OFNC partnered with the Club des ornithologues de l’Outaouais in this effort. The Ottawa-Gatineau Count usually takes place in mid-December and involves teams of volunteers who spend most of the day outdoors tallying species and numbers of birds within a 7.5 mile (12 km) radius of the Peace Tower. Other volunteers contribute by noting the birds that come to their backyard feeders on the day of the count.

Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas

Peak bird breeding period in Southern Ontario begins on Friday 24 May and continues through to 10 July. If you are out and about, remember that almost every bird you encounter can be added to the Third Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas: a once in a generation province-wide community-science effort to provide data that will help shape conservation efforts for years to come.

Every observation is welcome and valued: whether a bird seen or heard in appropriate habitat (possible breeding) through to a bird – like this Nashville Warbler – carrying nesting material or food (confirmed breeding).

Many observers have now switched their bird reporting from the eBird app to the Nature Counts atlassing app. It is a simple and efficient way to add your sightings to the Atlas project and it can be configured to automatically and seamlessly share your Atlas observations with your eBird account.

For more information on the Atlas, please visit www.birdsontario.org or contact the Ottawa Regional Coordinator at Ottawa@birdsontario.org

#youcanatlasthat

Members of the OFNC were active participants in the past atlassing efforts.

More Resources for Ottawa Birding

There are numerous websites where birding knowledge can be advanced. A short list is available at our list of Birding links. You can also view our list of reports and databases.