Ellis reflects on the process of creating an accessible bird book for kids

By Ellis Hamm, MB Environmental Education Coordinator

March 5, 2025

My name is Ellis and I’m the new environmental education coordinator at A Rocha Manitoba! This means I get to create spaces where people can connect with creation, learn more about the natural world around them, and discover ways that they can care for the world. I come from a background full of farming and churching and teaching. I’m so excited to have the chance to bring people together to learn, play, and love creation in this position!

Over the past few weeks I have been making a bird guide book to use during some of our environmental education programming. 

I know what you’re thinking, Ellis, there are already so many bird guides. How could you possibly need something more than already exists?

Well, one of the joys of bird guides when you’re a seasoned birder is how many birds there are in all these books. 

One of the problems with bird guides when you’re a new birder is how many birds there are in all these books. 

In an attempt to create a highly accessible bird book for our spring break pop-up camps this year, I have created a very niche bird book. This is a book of 27 species that you are most likely to see in the Assiniboine forest in Winnipeg in early April. It has big pictures and the names of the birds and nothing else to take up space. It’s simple, it’s unassuming, and it’s lightweight. 

How was I able to make such a specific bird book, you ask? 

Am I a seasoned birder who knows exactly what birds I will find whenever and wherever I want? Absolutely not. I’m only beginning to explore this birdy world!

What has allowed me to make this book is the incredible work of citizen scientists! 

My first source was the data collected by our A Rocha birding group in April of 2024. This group walked around the CMU grounds—located directly beside the Assiniboine forest—once a week from April to September and catalogued every bird they saw. 

From that spreadsheet, I know they saw a bunch of Northern Yellow Shafted Flickers in April, and then not again until September. A species to include!

I also saw there will be lots of cedar waxwings later in the spring and summer, but none in April. A species to skip for this book!

But, say I don’t trust our data. What if we just missed all the cedar waxwings in April? Or the birders accidentally had their eyes closed when these particular birds were around? More citizen science to the rescue! 

The second resource I used was iNaturalist, where I looked up Cedar Waxwing observations in Winnipeg and saw spikes in February and the summer months, but a deep valley of almost no observations in March and April. Suspicion confirmed! 

iNaturalist provided me with data on which birds were seen most in Winnipeg in April, and then I could look closer and see on a map where the different sitings were, whether they were focused in particular parts of the city, and whether they were in the forest in particular. 

When I brought together our birding spreadsheet and the data from iNaturalist, I could create a bird book perfectly suited for our young birders’ needs. 

I know what you’re thinking, all of this sounds so cool! I want to be a part of this! Well boy howdy, you can! If you are between 6 and 12 years old, you can come to our spring break pop-up camps in April (there are only a couple spots left!) and put this bird book to good use. If you’re a bit older, you could join us for our weekly bird walks any Thursday morning from spring to fall. If you aren’t in Winnipeg, perhaps consider downloading the iNaturalist app and recording your observations of plants or wildlife around you! 

Photos by: Brooke McAllister, Ellis Hamm