Black-capped chickadee rules the roost as the City of Regina's new official bird

The black-capped chickadee has been crowned asRegina's new official bird.

Angela Tremka, program co-ordinator for Bird Friendly Regina, made the egg-citingannouncement toa gaggle of reporters on Friday which was also National Bird Day.

Mayor Sandra Masters, sitting at a table with a stuffedblack-capped chickadee and cookies decorated with an image of the bird, signed the declaration that made it official.

"The accessibility of this bird makes it perfect for our city," Masters said after the announcement. "My office got into a huge debate about 'What about a prairie chicken? What about a chicken hawk?What about a ' OK, calm down!"

WATCH|Black-capped chickadee announced as Regina's new official bird:

Black-capped chickadee announced as Regina's new official bird

10 months ago

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The black-capped chickadee has been crowned as Regina's new official bird. Angela Tremka, program co-ordinator for Bird Friendly Regina, made the announcement to a gaggle of reporters at a Friday news conference.

The contest started in March 2022 when the City of Regina was declared a bird-friendly city by Nature Canada.

In 2023, nominations started flying in, with as many as 700 finding a perch, according to the city, before six finalists were eventually chosen.

The six finalists up for considerationwere the peregrine falcon, red-breasted nuthatch, grey partridge, Canada goose, American pelican and black-capped chickadee.

Experts and local celebrities took to the radio waves, urging residents to vote for a preferred candidate.

The chickadee ultimately earnedmore than 8,500 votes of the21,000 votes that were cast.

Ryan Fisher, the advocate for the chickadee, was overjoyed that his tiny little friend took the top spot.

"The black-capped chickadee is a small bird that punches above its weight, just like Regina," he said."We're a small-medium-sized city that punches above our weight in Canada."

Fisher, the curator of vertebrate zoology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, saysthat unlike some of the other finalists, the chickadee does not take flight and head south for the winter, which mightexplain why it won the honour.

Masters says she understands why people would not stop beakingback and forth about who should win.

"We are a community that really does celebrate nature," she said."I think it's something that we sometimes take for granted. But if you look at the way we maintain our park space even the volume of park space that we have I think we're a community that really values it.

"To have something like a little fun competition around it, it connects us."

Public votingtook place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 10,and while everyone seemed resigned to the outcome on Friday, the competition did ruffle a few feathers, especially whenthe chickadee miraculously garnered thousands of votes overnight on Dec. 5, leading toconspiracy theoriesand allegations of fowl play.

That morningStefani Langenegger, host of CBC Radio'sThe Morning Edition, posted on social mediathat the chickadeehad clearly won the contest. She said the birdhad thousands more votes than itsmain contender the red-breasted nuthatch.

Regina resident Marc Spooner, afan of the "noble" and "honest" red-breasted nuthatch, said he and his family had been watching the votes closely andnoticed something was offthe previous week.

"On the night of Dec. 5we ate supper, we went to bed like normal. I didn't expect anything was amiss," Spooner said.

LISTEN|Fowl play alleged in vote for Regina's official bird

The Morning Edition - Sask8:30Fowl play alleged in vote for Regina's official bird

People who voted in a competition to decide the City of Regina's official bird are chirping about the results. There have been some seedy allegations that the projected winner the black-capped chickadee feathered its nest with illegitimate votes. We get an update from CBC reporter Jessie Anton.

As always, Spooner checked the city's voting page before bed to catchup on the numbers. He said the red-breasted nuthatch was ahead, followed closely by the chickadee.

"But when I woke up in the morning and I checked the totals, lo and behold, the chickadee had garnered 2,371 votes overnight while Regina sleeps. And that got me thinking, you know, Big Chickadee was behind this. Something was afoot."

CBC has not been able to confirm that fraud of any kind took place.

Now the controversy has been put to rest. The black-capped chickadee rules the roost.