Christine Whelan FEO, February 2, 2023, VOL. 4 ISSUE 12
On Christmas Day, a Fort Erie family who lives by Waverly Woods, while shoveling snow after the storm, were “digging out snow with frozen birds in it.”
I wondered if this was a localized situation. Then I spoke with another resident, this time in rural Ridgeway. She found four bluejays while shoveling.
Frozen birds were found along the shoreline, further west. This next sighting had a happy ending.
Dave Borbely located a cardinal in the center of a road in Port Colborne. He thawed the bird in his garage before it flew up into his house. After catching it, he released it outside.
In Crystal Beach, a white swan who couldn’t lift its head because of ice wrapped around its neck was taken home by residents to thaw.
When I think of Fort Erie and birds, I think of Marcie. I contacted Marcie Jacklin of Community Voices of Fort Erie Inc. and avid birder on January 17. I was curious about her thoughts on the effects December’s storm had on the local community of birds.
She commented, “The storm seems to have a significant impact on the number of birds in Fort Erie. I don’t ever remember going birding in good habitat and not seeing any birds. This could also be happening because of the double whammy of habitat loss. Certainly, the birds couldn’t shelter without the appropriate habitat.”
When asked if finding birds frozen in the snow after a storm was rare, Marcie replied, “Yes, very rare because of the numbers. One person reported finding 10 dead birds in her yard. If a bird dies, people rarely find them. Other critters usually find them and eat them first.”
Jacklin then spoke of Fort Erie residents. “Kudos to the people who stocked their feeders before, during, and after the storm. They probably saved some birds.”
She added, “There have been scientific studies that show birds prefer wild food but during a storm, like we had a feeder can mean the difference between life and death.”
Ways To Help Birds Ride Out A Storm In Your Own Backyard
According to David Mizejewski, Naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation, there are ways we can all contribute to assisting birds during storms.
Plants for Food and Protection for Birds in Storms
The same native plants that provide food for wildlife in the form of berries, seeds, nuts, and nectar will do double duty and provide shelter if they are planted densely. Evergreens are particularly valuable since their foliage remains green year-round.
Make a Brush Pile for Wildlife
Simple structures that wildlife will use for refuge can be assembled. Brush piles mimic fallen woody debris found in natural areas. They can be built by lining up a series of parallel logs, then layering successively smaller branches on top. This will create a dome-like structure filled with spaces that wildlife as large as foxes and as small as birds will take advantage of.
Pile Up Rocks
The same thing can be done with rocks by stacking smaller stones on and around bigger ones to create mini-caves and crevices. Just be sure to stack the rocks without using mortar, which would eliminate those valuable hiding places.
Put Up a Roosting Box for Shelter from Storms
Special roosting boxes designed to provide instant shelter can be bought or built. These look like nesting boxes or birdhouses, but they have entry holes toward the bottom to help the box retain heat in winter. They might even have some perches on the inside to accommodate multiple animals. Some critters or others will use a roosting box in all seasons.
Birds Take Cover
Researchers have documented 100-plus birds roosting in a single tree cavity. Additionally, they drop into a hypothermic state to save energy, according to birding expert George Harrison.
Birds recognize changes in air pressure, which are often signs that the weather is about to change, according to birding experts Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman. If they sense a storm is coming, they tend to forage more, often coming to feeders for the easiest source of food.
When the storm hits, birds seek shelter in dense shrubs or thickets, next to heavy tree trunks, and on the downwind side of woods and forests. Cavity-nesting birds hunker down in roosting boxes and natural cavities to ride out the storms.
The Geese Rescue
Nigel Hay, who regularly documents local weather and non-weather event by video, with a YouTube account, Fort Erie Vlogger, was out daily before, during, and after the December blizzard. While exploring the lake shore, he came across three other people — and a horrific scene.
From his video footage of the rescue of Canadian geese on the beach, “Four strangers come together to save geese frozen in the ice during the Christmas blizzard. They had been trapped since December 23. We found them on December 26.”
Nigel videotaped three others, Chad, Alisia, and Henry, working to free these poor feathered souls, encased in ice approximately eight inches thick.
The first scene is heartbreaking; the sight of a Canada goose, frozen in the ice, while someone is over it working away carefully, chiseling to get the goose loose. It was disturbing to watch this part of the video because it was so unnatural.
In -8C temperatures, it was not known if it would survive, but they couldn’t leave it without trying.
While working on this goose, someone else approached to say there were several more down the shoreline. The plan was to get them out and sheltered anywhere out of the cold and wind.
Even after the first goose was released from the icy surface, it was still completely covered in ice. The video shows the rescuers gently placing the freed goose into a large tote container.
They were able to save two Canadian geese. Henry took them home to thaw.
What Happened? Nigel’s Theory
We talked about the birds being found frozen in the areas that were most affected by the storm. I asked Nigel, as an eyewitness, his thoughts on how this could have happened.
He tried to find an explanation. “I’m going by what we saw of the geese. When we had those strong winds on Friday, the waves had been crashing, causing spray in the air. Then about 9:00 am, when we had that flash freeze, in a blink of an eye, everything just froze.
“Within 20-30 seconds, the temperature went from above freezing, plummeting to -10 with a -20 windshield. So, that spray froze on everything as soon as it came in contact with it. A lot of the wildlife got caught in this.”
“Once they got weighed down, they couldn’t go anywhere, maybe lying low to see if they could ride it out. But the ice continued to encase them.”
Nigel added, “I also found a seagull that was completely frozen. I tried to catch it but it got away from me. It turns out, another girl I know helped it recover. These guys found it on the road. Its feet were stuck. Its whole head was covered in ice and was falling over.”
The Video
Nigel shared with me, “We were with these geese for nearly an hour. And I’ve got four and a half minutes of video recording because it really was an afterthought. I was filming something else at the time when we found the geese.”
He would only post the video if it had a happy ending. “It did have a happy ending so I posted it on YouTube.”
Then added, “We were so close but we couldn’t save them all.” He had recently been down by the location and noticed a couple of remains.
At the end of the video, the two Canada geese are indoors, calmly drinking water, warm and safe.
You can find Nigel’s video of the geese rescue, along with a wide variety of local coverage by searching YouTube, Fort Erie Vlogger.
Photo of cardinal provided by Dave Borbely
