Our second annual Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Squamish Bird Festival was a great success!
Our event took place around World Migratory Bird Day (May 9), and was a celebration of birds as well as an opportunity to raise awareness of the threats that birds face in urban environments. This year’s festival featured 14 activities between May 8 and May 30, including bird walks, workshops, a film screening, and children’s activities. Reflecting this year’s theme: Every Bird Counts: Your Observations Matter, we celebrated birds while helping participants build skills, contribute bird data, and deepen community engagement in bird conservation.
The festival was organized by our Bird Friendly team, which is working to achieve Bird Friendly City certification from Nature Canada by reducing threats to birds, protecting and enhancing habitat, and engaging the community. Read on for festival highlights and to learn what’s next for our Bird Friendly team!
The booth & guided walks
We set up our tent on the Town Dike Trail on Friday May 8 to Sunday May 10. Over the course of the weekend, we spoke to around 100 of you!
You were most interested in our western purple martin nest box, specifically the “starling excluder” – a small, red, cube of wood that blocks the entrance hole before the purple martins arrive from South America. This prevents the invasive European starlings from stealing their precious nesting spots. Don’t worry though, unlike purple martins, starlings will nest in other places. We remove the block just before the purple martins are due to arrive, and once the European starlings have found other places to nest.
Over the weekend, we had company from WildSafe BC and the Squamish River Watershed Society – thanks for joining us!
Birds
Our bird walks covered a range of topics, from beginner birders to responsible wildlife watching, and more technical birding. We walked the through the Estuary and Sp’akw’us Feather Park, and counted every bird we saw and heard throughout the whole weekend of guided bird walks and our Monthly Bird Count. We even created an eBird trip report which you can view here!
Niall (Squamish Birders Coordinator) was joined by travel writer Tazim Damji on his Ethical Wildlife Watching and Photography walk, battling with Squamish’s afternoon winds – read about their experience here.
Throughout the Bird Festival weekend, we saw a grand total of 1,582 individual birds across 79 species!
Notable species included:
- Western tanager
- MacGillivray’s warbler
- Warbling vireo
- Black-headed grosbeak
- Sora
Click the images below to see them!
Films and activities
The Squamish Adventure Centre was the perfect venue for our screening of The Big Year – a film where three birders battle it out to be North America’s best birder. It was a great turn out!
We also held workshops at the Squamish Public Library. One about eBird and bird conservation science with Squamish Birders Coordinators Niall Bell and Griffin Duckworth, and the second about building a safe and bird-friendly garden with Penny Nelson of Lion’s Bay Bird Friendly. Lion’s Bay has been certified as a Bird Friendly Town since 2022, and we’re so grateful to Penny for sharing her knowledge and expertise with us!
And last but not least
Thank you’s
We gratefully acknowledge funding support from the District of Squamish through the Community Enhancement Grant program, administered by the Squamish Community Foundation.
A huge thank you to ArrowWood Games and The Squamish Adventure Centre for their participation in making Bird Festival a success.
Thanks to volunteers who made this event happen – we appreciate every single one of you and all the hard work you put in!
Lastly, a big thanks to all those that attended and chatted with us throughout the weekend.
What’s next?
As we continue working toward Bird Friendly Town certification, our next goal is to seek formal support from the District of Squamish Council. This includes seeking a council resolution to support the certification application and ongoing collaboration with municipal staff.
In addition, we will continue tracking birds in Squamish through our monthly bird counts and advancing the remaining work needed to achieve Bird Friendly Town certification.
Photo credits: western tanager: Nicole McHugh; black-headed grosbeak: Eugene Wong; warbling vireo: Nicole McHugh; sora: Niall Bell; MacGillivray’s warbler: Niall Bell.