CALEDONIA—For the past 40 years, Don Wills has followed his passion for bird conservancy, slowly building a trail of nest boxes throughout Haldimand and Norfolk counties and beyond that are directly responsible for the preservation and revitalization of two endangered species in Canada: the eastern bluebird and the prothonotary warbler.
For those efforts, Wills was recently named a recipient of a Meritorious Service Decoration (civil division) from the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General of Canada.
—Haldimand Press photo
by Mike Renzella.
A letter sent to Wills informing him of the award from the Chancellory of Honours called the distinction one of the highest honours in the country, noting, “It is a testament to your outstanding achievement and service to the nation.”
Wills recalled how he got started on his path, after seeing his father build 12 bird boxes to be placed around their family farm on Mulligan Road, Caledonia in 1985. His father was inspired after seeing a bluebird sitting on a hollowed pole while he was on a bus headed to serve in the Second World War.
“That’s the last bluebird he’d seen in 1939,” said Wills, who said his father built those original boxes in the hopes of attracting at least one of the rare birds to their property.
“In those days I wasn’t much of a birder,” recalled Wills.
That first year, all 12 boxes were filled, with tree swallows taking 11, and a single eastern bluebird taking the 12th.
It was that bluebird that caught the attention of Wills’ neighbours, none of whom had ever laid eyes on one before. That interest allowed him to expand his efforts, placing additional boxes on neighbouring farms and beginning a trail that still exists today and stretches as far as Cayuga and York.
“Now, the trail has 500 boxes over 50 miles. It takes me a week to monitor them,” said Wills, whose efforts over the past 40 years are directly responsible for creating the most productive nest box trail in Ontario.
Many of his initial boxes, made from spare California redwood lumber on the farm four decades ago, are still standing today.
—Haldimand Press photo by Mike Renzella.
Approximately one third of those boxes reside within Haldimand County, and Wills has tracked the birth of more than 20,000 new bluebirds through his efforts.
He said that of the 500 boxes along the trail, around 100 are used by bluebirds, with around 350 going to tree swallows and the remainder occupied by either house wrens or chickadees each year.
“No boxes are unused,” said Wills.
It was through an invitation to join Bird Studies Canada in 1998 that Wills became aware of the prothonotary warbler.
“In 1997, only 10 pairs were reported in Canada,” said Wills, who was brought on to the team by fellow birder Jon McCraken, who spearheaded a nest box recovery project for the government and asked Wills to experiment with different styles of boxes that might attract the elusive bird.
Unlike their peers, prothonotary warblers prefer to build nests inside tree cavities typically made by woodpeckers or chickadees.
After much experimentation, Wills settled on a hollowed-out tree trunk style nest box, which has since proven to be the only effective model in attracting the endangered birds.
“I set up nest boxes bolted to steel poles in deep water of swamp forests in a historic breeding habitat near Long Point,” said Wills.
“We don’t have that habitat here (in the Haldimand area), we don’t have the swamp forest these birds require, so I had to go out there.”
While that recovery team project was funded by the Canadian government from 1997 to 2007, Wills has voluntarily continued on with his work with no funding ever since.
“As a volunteer for the project, I continued to set up more of my log boxes and wade through the swamps monitoring any nests,” said Wills, calling himself the authority in Canada for the endangered species thanks to his decades-long effort.
“Working with endangered species can be very frustrating,” he recounted, noting that the warblers spend up to eight months of the year in Panama or Costa Rica, and will only nest in the Carolinian region of southern Ontario and nowhere else within Canada.
While numbers were low from 2007-2015, with Wills logging only four to five nests per year at the time, those numbers increased in 2018, with nine nests producing 37 fledged young, and then “2019 was a record year with 10 nests producing 47 fledged young and three examples of a second brood,” Wills shared.
In total, Wills is responsible for the birth of 436 baby warblers across his 28 years of focusing on the bird.
“I’m actually saving the bird in this country. Nobody else is doing anything with it,” he said.
While Wills is not yet sure when the award ceremony in Ottawa will be held, he is looking forward to attending.
“It’s paid off,” said Wills of his lifetime of dedication and volunteerism. “This really caps it off.”
