The Ellis family of Parkenham,
Ontario, came west in 1886 to settle on a ranch near Calgary. Their
son John, then a teenager, was married in 1894 to Agnes Clark who
had come west from Ontario in 1888 to teach school.
They lived near Calgary until
1906 when they moved with their family of four children to a quarter
section homestead in the Joffre district. In 1907 they built a
two-storey frame house and subsequently enlarged the farm by the
purchase of an additional five quarters.
After John and Agnes passed away
in the early 1950s, two of their children, Charlie and Winnie, took
over the farm operations. And about this same time, Charlie began a
project that was to dominate the rest of his life; he set out his
first nesting box for the Mountain Bluebirds.
In the years that followed,
Charlie and Winnie rimmed the fields with some 300 nest boxes for
Mountain Bluebirds and tree swallows, built and erected houses for
Black-capped Chickadees, Purple Martins and Flickers, and
established a huge program for feeding winter birds.
The Ellis farm quickly gained
recognition as a sanctuary for all wildlife and Charlie became
widely known as Mr. Bluebird, a title bestowed by the well known Red
Deer naturalist, Kerry Wood.
When Charlie Ellis put up a bird
box on his front lawn in the spring of 1955, he had no idea how much
this simple act would change his life. Or the lives of thousands of
other people. Charlie was intrigued with a simple nest box plan that
he came across in a farm magazine, so he decided to build one.
Shortly after he set it out, he was thrilled to see that a pair of
Tree Swallows took up residence. But House Sparrows soon moved in
and laid claim to the box. They killed the female swallow and
started to build their own nest on top of her and her dead
nestlings.
Charlie was outraged. He decided
that he would spend the rest of his life helping native birds by
providing them with secure nesting sites, and by controlling local
populations of the exotic, destructive House Sparrow.
Charlie started building more
boxes, and within a few years maintained a 300-box trail around his
farm. He would get up at 5:00 AM every morning to walk his trails.
In his pockets he would carry a supply of white feathers - an early
sought commodity by nesting Tree Swallows. Mountain Bluebirds soon
found his boxes, too, and Charlie was rewarded by witnessing the
bluebird populations grow from just a single pair in 1956 to more
than 60 pairs in the late 1970s. The Ellis farm boasts having had
the highest nesting density of bluebirds every recorded.
In addition to maintaining their
extensive bluebird trail, Charlie and his sister Winnie transformed
their backyard into a haven for wildlife. Orchards and flower
gardens were planted specifically to attract birds, while water
ponds around the farm attracted deer and other wild creatures.
Backyard bird baths were kept full and a myriad of bird feeders were
strategically placed around the yard. During the winter, up to two
tons of sunflowers seeds were consumed by massive flocks of Evening
Grosbeaks.
In the early 1980s, Charlie's
greatest concern was the fate of "his" bluebirds should he no longer
be able to tend his nest box trail. Coincidently, Union Carbide was
looking for a site to build an ethylene glycol plant. Following a
suggestion by the Red Deer River Naturalists, Carbide agreed to
continue the Ellis legacy through a non-profit charitable company,
Ellis Bird Farm Ltd. Union Carbide later merged with Dow Chemical
and Dow continued to support EBF.
Ellis Bird Farm Ltd. is now
supported by MEGlobal Canada.
Ellis Bird Farm Ltd. is administered by an independent,
volunteer board of directors with representation from MEGlobal
Canada,
the Red Deer River Naturalists, the Federation of Alberta
Naturalists, the County of Lacombe and the community. Charlie and
Winnie Ellis were both accorded honorary, life-time memberships.
Charlie passed away in 1990 and Winnie in 2004.
