A dozen Brant for Nature members and supporters rolled up their sleeves to help maintain local bird boxes on Saturday, October 3, 2026.
Gathering at the New Forest in the City Natural Area in Brantford, the group spent their morning exploring the 78-acre site, cleaning out 37 bird boxes and recording their findings.
The Brant Tree Coalition (BTC) first started the New Forest in the City Natural Area project in 2012 with a five-year plan to plant 10,000 trees a year on a formerly farmed plot of undevelopable property.
The BTC, along with other community groups, businesses, volunteers, service clubs and students, eventually surpassed the original goal and more than 75,000 native trees and shrubs have since been planted throughout the site, providing habitat for a range of wildlife.
“The Brant Tree Coalition found this place in the fall of 2011 with [Brian Geerts] the local Urban Forester at the time. We went to City Council and said ‘we’d like to plant this site, and we’ll pay for it,’ and they agreed it was a good idea,” said Chuck Beach of the BTC. “We had a five-year plan to plant 10,000 native trees a year, and we did. Prior to that, we were planting all over the place, but when we found this spot, we brought TD Bank, the Rotary Club, high school students and the overall community here to plant, and now almost everything you see here has been planted since 2012.”
In 2014, Pauline Johnson’s e3 class helped build and erect a number of bird boxes for the natural area, attracting the likes of Tree Swallows, Eastern Bluebirds and House Wrens. More have been added since then, and volunteers gather together each fall to clean out the boxes and assess the nesting activity after the birds have flown south for the winter.
“We’re going to get the bird boxes cleaned out and get them ready for next year, but we’re also trying to see whether the bird nesting was successful,” said Beach. “So, we have a grid and we’re going to mark if there was a resident in there and what type of bird it was, if the nesting stage was completed or abandoned, and whether or not breeding in the nest was successful.”
Tom Sitak, President of Brant for Nature said the fall cleanouts have been taking place since the bird boxes were first installed, and are important for a couple of reasons, one of which is that birds won’t reuse a box in the spring if a nest from the previous year is still inside.
As for why they collect data, Sitak said that it can help them spot any changes in the birds using the area over time.
“We have over a decade’s worth of results now, so if all of a sudden we notice a decline in the nesting success, then we can start asking questions, things like, ‘Why aren’t they nesting here?’ or, ‘Is there something happening to the bird population?’” he said. “We also send our results to Ontario Nature so they can take a look at them, and while I don’t think they’ve ever done anything with our data, they definitely like us partnering with them.”
During the event, participants were split into three groups, with two heading out with Beach and Sitak, while the third joined local birding expert Duane Brown, environmental education specialist and former outdoor educator with the GRCA at Apps’ Mill Nature Centre.
Prior to splitting up, Brown offered valuable insight on what they might find inside the boxes and how the volunteers could determine which species had taken up residence, explaining that Bluebirds and Tree Swallows prefer more open, prairie-like areas, while House Wrens were more likely to nest near trees.
Following the event, Sitak said he was pleased with the turnout, and was happy to see that the New Forest in the City Natural Area is thriving the way it is.
“Today was our best turnout for doing this. I think the weather has a lot to do with that because we’ve done it in the freezing cold and the rain before, but it was really nice to see, and I would say there were three or four new faces to the club too,” he said. “This natural area is very well established and I think it’s a massive success story. All the credit goes to Chuck Beach, he was the mastermind behind it, and if it wasn’t for him and his persistence to keep going, I don’t think it would be where it is today.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
