Calgary recertified as ‘bird friendly city’ for supporting local and migratory birds

From Fish Creek Provincial Park to the downtown core, Calgary provides a welcoming environment for a wide variety of birds.

The city’s efforts to support local and migratory birds have earned it a recertification by Nature Canada as a bird friendly city. The certification recognizes communities for promoting co-existence with birds, including taking steps to protect birds from the many threats they face in an urban environment.

Calgary was one of the first cities to be certified as bird friendly when the program launched in 2021, alongside Vancouver, Toronto, and London, Ont.

The city was then recertified in 2023, with this year’s recertification making Calgary the first in Canada to receive a total of three certifications.

John McFaul, chair of Bird Friendly Calgary, says the city has taken steps to mitigate threats facing birds. According to McFaul, the top two threats birds face in the urban environment are window collisions and cats.

According to the Government of Canada, window collisions kill 16 to 42 million birds across the country every year.

The City of Calgary doesn’t require windows to be bird-safe, but McFaul says encouraging Calgarians to turn off the lights at night or mark their windows in an effort to prevent birds from flying into them has been effective. 

Calgarians urged to cut lights at night as more birds turn up dead from window strikes

A 2013 study published in the Avian Conservation and Ecology journal says that house cats and feral cats are estimated to kill 100 to 350 million birds every year in Canada. A more recent study from the University of Guelph says that number is closer to 60 million birds killed by cats every year on average.

The City of Calgary’s Responsible Pet Ownership Bylaw helps curb cat predation of birds by requiring cats stay on their owner’s property and not roam free.

Another major threat? Bright lights.

“Light pollution can affect the birds as they migrate through the city,” McFaul said.

The City of Calgary has made efforts to mitigate light pollution within city limits, including replacing street lights across the city with LED bulbs.

Volunteers searching downtown sidewalks for birds that have struck buildings

Beyond the city and its residents taking steps to keep birds safe, there is also ample greenspace for birds to thrive. According to the city, Calgary has more than 8,500 hectares of natural areas.

“Calgary has a great natural park system, and all those parks provide perfect habitat for the birds to find their homes to live to nest,” McFaul said.

Nearly 300 local and migratory bird species can be found in Calgary throughout the year.

Autumn Jordan, who organizes the Bird Friendly City program for Nature Canada, says Calgary is taking a much-needed step in the right direction when it comes to helping bird populations recover.

“We hope that by reducing the impact of those first two categories, cats and windows, that we can help the bird populations rebound from the human-made causes that we’ve created,” she said.

Calgary’s ecosystem is primarily grasslands, which is considered one of the country’s most endangered ecosystems. Bird populations in the Prairies have dropped by 67 per cent in the last 55 years, according to a 2024 report by Birds Canada in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

“Since the 1970s, we’ve lost over three billion birds in North America,” Jordan said. “So it’s really important that we do what we can to reverse these declines.”

People can also help birds in their own way, like marking their own windows to keep birds from flying into them.

“This can be as simple as buying an $8 window Sharpie marker from Staples and creating some fun designs on the outside of your glass,” she said.

Calgary is one of 36 municipalities in Canada certified as bird friendly. In Alberta, that list also includes Edmonton, Devon and Strathcona County.