We are opening for the 2022 season on Monday may 23, the may long weekend monday! Come out for a stroll and pop in the visitor centre to say hi to our staff and summer students!

We are excited to have Sheraz Khan operating the Café for the 2022 season! Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Sheraz - a Red Seal Chef - blends classic Canadian and Trinidadian flavours. She puts her heart and soul into her food, and the proof is in the pudding! You can expect to see Ellis Café classics like ice cream and pies baked from scratch on the menu! Full menu coming soon.


For reservations, contact: 587-447-3097

Although we are not open to the public until May 23/2022, much like spring, ellis bird farm is also startin to rev up activity! keep an eye out for our 2022 event schedule on our socialmedia and our website, coming soon! 

BIG NEWS! Ellis Bird Farm will be staying open after labour day! We will be open until December 16th with modified hours. If you have ever wanted to experience fall and winter on our site you can!

​This spring we put a camera in a mountain bluebird nest box to get up close and personal with a bluebird family. This is for a study we are conducting on parental care of mountain bluebirds. Thanks to Red Deer and District Community Foundation for making this study possible!

​This year, Dr. Delano Lewis and Dr. Natalia Lifshitz are partnering with Ellis Bird Farm to conduct a study that explores the link between mountain bluebirds, pesticides and insects. With funding from Alberta Environment and Parks, we are collecting feces from mountain bluebird nestlings, then sending the feces to a lab to determine what types of insects are being eaten and whether there are any pesticides in the feces. We are also setting traps to determine insect diversity and abundance around bluebird nests, as well as analyze the pesticide concentrations in the insects that are caught in the traps. We hope to determine whether bluebird reproduction is affected by insect abundance, diversity and contamination. 

Fun fact - nestling bluebirds package their poop into what's called a fecal sac, and the parents either remove the sac from the nest or eat it. The fecal sac is made up of a black part (undigested insect remains) and a white part (uric acid). Who knew bird poop could be so interesting?!

We were so excited to present Shonna McLeod with the 2021 Blue Feather Award yesterday at the Bluebird Festival! The Blue Feather Award is presented each year to an individual who makes a significant contribution to bluebird conservation in their lifetime. Shonna has spent decades looking after bluebirds (and still does!) since she started monitoring her own nest box trail in the 1990s. She's also banded countless nestlings, and mentored younger bluebird trail monitors in the Calgary area. In addition to maintaining her own trail, she is currently a bander in charge for the Saw Whet Owl Monitoring Project and spends around 40 consecutive nights per year banding from sunset to midnight! Thank you Shonna for all you've done and continue to do for the birds! 

This male MOBL appears to "strut his stuff" for the camera but actually there is a female MOBL close by.

Video by Maureen Carey