Our journey with Wild Birds Unlimited took flight in 2020 when we opened our Kanata store. Two years later, we were ready to expand our flock and had the incredible opportunity to purchase the Ottawa location from its original owners, who had been serving the community since 1992.

Originally from Thunder Bay, we’ve always felt connected to the outdoors. After years in nursing (Kindell) and HR (Josh), we followed our passion for sharing the joy of backyard birding with others. Now, we spend our days helping fellow nature lovers create thriving backyard habitats, one feeder at a time!

When we’re not in the store, you’ll find us at our country home with our two daughters, a pack of pets, and plenty of birdwatching from the porch. We can’t wait to hear about the birds visiting your backyard!

I get to hang out with happy people and talk about birds all day—what could be better? It’s so much fun connecting with people who are just as passionate about birds and nature as I am!

My favourite bird is the American Robin. Growing up in Ottawa, their song always signaled summer in the backyard with my family. Now, I love sprinkling mealworms in my yard and keeping a clean birdbath for them—watching those little cuties always makes me happy!

When I first joined Wild Birds Unlimited, I never imagined how much I would love it. Five years later, I can’t imagine being anywhere else! It’s incredibly rewarding to help customers, make a difference for nature, and be part of such a wonderful community. Plus, I’d miss my friends—both customers and co-workers!

Wild Birds Unlimited has been a great fit for me. All my life, I’ve had a love for animals and nature. My family always had bird feeders, we were big on camping, and I was always out in the bush near our house exploring—looking for animal tracks and nests. My appreciation for wildlife started young. (I even hid an injured mourning dove in my coat on the bus ride home from middle school so my parents could help me take it to the Wild Bird Care Centre. Surprise, Mom & Dad!)

This early love for nature led me to work for many years in the animal care field. Now, at WBU, I love getting to talk to people who are just as passionate about birds and the birding hobby. It’s always rewarding to help find solutions to issues that might be hindering someone’s enjoyment of their backyard birds—or to surprise them with an interesting bird fact!

The Pileated Woodpecker is my favourite backyard bird. I’ve only been lucky enough to see them a handful of times, but they’re always so impressive—basically like a little pterodactyl coming to your feeder!

I’m also our resident artist! You might recognize some of my artwork from our sandwich board out front of the store.

I’ve loved animals and nature for as long as I can recall, and I carried that love into studying Biology at Carleton University. Graduating into a pandemic left me uncertain, but I’m lucky to have landed at WBU Ottawa! It’s a truly wonderful place to talk all things birds with likeminded folks.

One birding tip I love to share is using the Cornell Lab’s phone app Merlin. You can record your surroundings in the app and it lists what birds it hears. Technology has its limits, so take the answers with a grain of salt, but this can give you a good idea of which bird species to search for.

My interest in birdwatching began with my mom feeding the birds while I grew up, but it blossomed years later when I had moved out and put up a suet cage for the woodpeckers I saw in my yard. Soon after, my partner gifted me a Preston the Penguin seed character… and the rest is bird-loving history!

As someone who has always cared about the environment, I am grateful to be working at a nature-promoting store like WBU! I love that I get to learn something new almost every day, be it by chatting with my bird-nerd coworkers, hearing stories from customers, or flipping through our books. Nature never ceases to amaze and impress!

My only outdoor space is a small balcony, but it’s a space that I reserve purely for my wildlife visitors. I have named my setup “Chez Borb”. My favourite backyard critters are those that most birders would consider the “pests”; pigeons, mourning doves, crows, squirrels… I love them all, even the starlings and grackles.🖤 Some may call me crazy.

Lately, I’ve been trying to befriend the crows on my walks to work by throwing them a handful of peanuts in the shell, like confetti. They may appreciate it, but I know it brings Me a lot of joy!