Thank you to all those who attended the January screening of Canadian Director Su Rynard’s film, The Messenger, at the Almonte Old Town Hall.
The film dealt with the sobering reality of the precipitous decline of songbirds and was viewed by a sold-out crowd. All proceeds from the MVFN screening went towards Bird Studies Canada, including all entrance fees, and many MVFN members and others also made donations, for which MVFN is very grateful.
Thanks to the overwhelming community interest in this environmental documentary, a very significant amount was raised, surpassing our wildest expectations: we presented Bird Studies Canada The Messenger Impact Campaign with a donation of over $800! Congratulations to all those who attended, to MVFN’s Program, Birding, Social and Service Committee volunteers, and the Municipality of Mississippi Mills who helped with logistics and technical support at the venue.
DVD now in local libraries:
Since many were unable to see the film (the hall was filled, but people still in line) and many would like to see it again, MVFN decided to purchase a few DVD copies of the film. We are pleased to announce that copies of the DVD of The Messenger are now available at the Mississippi Mills and Carleton Place public libraries.
About the movie:
The decline of songbird populations is a global problem, as shown so clearly in the film, but hopefully we can take comfort in having taken a step towards understanding the problem better. Also, it is good to know of the efforts around the world which are featured in the film; people making diverse efforts, i.e. academic researchers, writers, farmers, citizen scientists, and volunteers, all focused on what can be done to save birds. One of the most poignant moments in the beautiful film was the question: “Can we live in a world without birds?” The answer is that we really do not know. I hope we will not have to find out.
What can we do to help?
- Reduce predation by cats. Keep your cats in doors. Click on the following link, or the image below, to read more about the interactions between cats and birds http://catsandbirds.ca/
- Do not use harmful pesticides
- In urban areas provide habitat for birds.
- Prevent fatal collisions with windows and get rid of “fatal” lights in the migration season. At night, lights in our windows and outdoors can fatally attract songbirds migrating at night. And year round, the reflective surfaces of windows can cause collisions during the day. Apply protective film or decals to reduce reflections. Window collisions are particularly a problem in our rural areas where reflective surfaces fool birds because they reflect natural features.
Read about the FLAP, the Fatal Light Awareness Program at http://www.flap.org/
- Be bird friendly in other ways. Reduce your carbon footprint, buy “bird friendly” coffee (organic, shade grown, AND plants grown in conditions conforming to high standards for habitat quality), and choose recycled and unbleached paper products.
- Get involved in citizen science and become more educated about challenges faced by birds, and what individual species need to thrive on Earth. Join a local naturalist group, such as the Mississippi Valley Field Naturalists, the Ottawa Field Naturalist Club or the Macnamara Field Naturalists.
- Add your voice to protect the vast boreal forest habitat for songbirds, i.e. the boreal forest. Sign the “Boreal Birds Need Half” petition at http://www.borealbirdsneedhalf.org/en/. The vast boreal region is the “planet’s nursery for billions of birds. It’s an ecosystem so big, the film says, that you can watch global carbon dioxide levels drop as the forest wakes up each spring and summer. And yet it’s being nibbled away by timber harvest, energy extraction and other types of fragmentation. The Boreal Birds Need Half campaign is a push by the Boreal Songbird Initiative and partners to ensure that some of this vast wilderness is set aside for the future.”
