Canada’s National Bird – The Loon Fits The Bill

Another Canada Day has come and gone, still we have no national bird.
In the loonie, we have a national monetary unit that is named after a bird. In the Toronto Blue Jays we have the nation’s baseball team, also named after a bird. In Ottawa we have the national capital which is for the birds. But we have no national bird.
Strange, but every July 1st I remember our former Prime Minister Jean Chretien yelling: “Happy Bird Day Canada!” He flew the coop long ago and still the country has no bird.
It is absolutely imperative that Canada select an official national bird before the next referendum on separation because then we’d need like two national birds, eh?
Every country in the world has a national bird. The Americans have the bald eagle. Antigua has the beautifully named magnificent frigatebird and suspiciously enough, the Kiwis have the kiwi. The national bird of Iraq is DUCK!!!
According to the internet, Tasmania’s national bird is listed as the Tasmanian Devil. Then in brackets it adds: (Not a bird.) Apparently we’re not alone in our struggle for a national figure of flight. Maybe we should do that. “Canada’s national bird is the beaver. (Struggles during take-off.)”
The Canadian Raptor Conservancy is now pushing the federal government to designate a national bird by running an on-line contest for citizens to vote for their favorite, feathered symbol of national pride. The raptor foundation breeds and exhibits falcons but unlike Ducks Unlimited they don’t raise birds in order to shoot them at a later date.
So far, the large, colorful and fairly vicious red-tailed hawk is leading the contest with 85% of the votes. It’s unlikely the pigeon will get many votes because the red-tailed hawk has him for lunch. I’m not sure Canada should be associated with a flying cannibal but if you’ve ever been plopped on by a pigeon, the red-tailed hawk has your back.
Dalton McGinty has enthusiastically thrown his support behind the red-tailed hawk so given the premier’s record of success, there’s every chance that bird will be extinct before the ballots can be counted.
Holding down second spot in the national bird contest is the Canada goose, the poop machine that honks like a horn. If these things let it fly in flight we’d all be wearing reinforced umbrella hats.
Canadian geese are far too plentiful with no redeeming features. You can’t eat them and they don’t eat anything that bothers us. They’re pests. A few may even be terrorists. I don’t know how much planning went into it but it was definitely a flock of Canadian geese that brought down US Airways flight 1549 last year making a hero out of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger who crashed landed in New York’s Hudson River. I’d be very reluctant to make a national hero out of a bird that’s already on Homeland Security’s no-fly list.
The crow is too ordinary, the raven too creepy and a tundra swan is just a goose with Audrey Hepburn’s neck.
Then there’s the loon. Nothing common about its elegant, understated beauty and a call that can make a cottager cry. A loner and a diving bird seldom seen on land, the female loon swims along the shoreline with her chicks sitting on her black and white checkered back. The common loon is a picture of serenity, a strong voice breaking through a sea of quiet, a caretaker of the wild. The loon should be our national bird.
The whiskey jack would work. We could nickname this bird the “John A. jack” after Canada’s very first prime minister John A. MacDonald who liked to drink a bit. Okay, a lot.
But if the choice is based on politics then the ruling Tories are mostly closely associated with turkeys, the liberals run around like a bunch of beheaded chickens and the NDP are parrots. They just repeat whatever the others just said.
Likewise, the great blue heron would make a fine national bird. Smart, dignified and efficient in flight, the great blue heron could mirror the character of our leaders in the event we ever get some that are smart, dignified and efficient.
Even the seagull has garnered some votes. The seagull? The seagull is actually too stupid to be a bird. It’s a large fluffy, white insect with wings whose natural habit is the parking lot at McDonald’s. I feed seagulls on the beach. I’ll throw a hunk of bread to one seagull all by himself and he immediately starts screaming as loud as possible: “I don’t have food! Don’t come near me! There’s no food here! Stay away!” Soon eight agitated seagulls arrive to beat him up and steal his bread. As our national bird, the seagull would have to be fitted for a compass and come with a warning: “Food goes in the front.”
No, for me, it’s the common loon – fairly rare and simply beautiful with a call that sounds like your mother beckoning you home. Plus it’s water-bound, unable to walk on land. Any bird that can’t crap on my lawn or my windshield deserves some sort of award.

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