Hello and welcome to the St. Catharine's Black Capped Chickadee Project!
We have been working with the city of St. Catharines who have graciously let us set up nestboxes around the GM Property. Councillor Robin McPherson and Mike Kraft are excited to be involved and we hope to see more Black Capped Chickadees in the area!
I am a professor at Brock University studying human influences and how animals adapt. For this project, My graduate student, Michelle Ross, and I are studying the effects of urbanization on physiology (e.g., hormones) and behaviour (e.g., aggression). These nestboxes are part of our urban site and were hand crafted by the Machine Shop at Brock University. If you see people with a ladder and safety vest around a nest box, that's us! We'll be checking the nestboxes to see if pairs of chickadees will set up home in them and raise a family.
We also have nests at the Brock Farm near the university. Check back for updates!