Fact Sheets
Chickadee Nestbox – Building Instructions
Learn about how to build your own nestbox to attract chickadees & house wrens.
Nurture
with
Us!
Champion, engage and sustain.
Volunteer & Donate
Ellis Nature Centre is a demonstration site for sustainable agriculture, wildlife friendly gardening and environmental conservation. We promote and showcase beneficial management practices so you can learn about how you can adopt more sustainable practices at home. Learn about our Mountain Bluebird nest-box trail or purple martin research and monitoring. We have information on backyard bird feeding, bird houses and bird identification guides.
Our sustainable agriculture practices are based on operating a working farm while providing for wildlife habitat just like Charlie Ellis did. We delay haying and set aside areas for waterfowl and grassland nesting birds. We are working on setting aside and connecting watershed features on our farm fields to provide riparian habitat and improve water quality and water storage on our lands. The rotational grazing practices we adopted help to improve soil health and biodiversity while increasing grazing days and forage productivity.
Our workshops are geared towards teaching people these sustainable practices to increase awareness.
Fact Sheets
Bluebird Nestbox – Building Instructions
Learn about how to build your own nestbox to attract bluebirds & tree swallows.
Fact Sheets
European Starling and House Sparrow Control – Fact Sheet
European Starlings and House Sparrows are exotic pest bird species. Introduced into North America from Europe in the 1800s, both species are secondary cavity nesters.
Fact Sheets
Attracting Bluebirds – Fact Sheet
Our virtual library includes fact sheets for the purple martin, bluebirds and bird control.
Stewardship
Sustainable Grazing
Visitors to Ellis Nature Centre can learn about agricultural research projects, including Adaptive Multi-paddock (AMP) grazing plans aimed at managing 400 acres of farmland sustainably. The farm serves as a demonstration site for conservation agriculture, showcasing practices that benefit both cattle and ecosystem health.
Stewardship
Purple Martin
Purple Martins are fairly common birds, especially in the southeastern U.S., but their numbers decline by approximately 0.5% per year, resulting in a cumulative decline of about 25% between 1966 and 2019, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey.
Spotlight on
Join the Ellis Nature Centre team as a Biology Research Technician. Assist with data collection for projects like nestbox monitoring, bird banding, and breeding surveys. We're looking for a self-starter with strong teamwork skills and expertise in local wildlife, ecology, and bird identification. Apply by January 24, 2025.
