By Pat Leonard
Lab of Ornithology

It’s incubating now and due to hatch in spring 2007 — a brand-new, multilevel citizen-science project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Funded by a $1.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Project NestWatch is designed to introduce birding and simple methods of scientific inquiry to hundreds of thousands of people, especially those new to the concept of citizen science. It will all happen through observation of the entrancing drama of new life unfolding in the nest.

 

photo/Ed Ray

Tammie Sanders of Princeton, Kentucky is a participant in the Birdhouse Network. A new citizen-science project from Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, NestWatch will be starting up next spring.

Project NestWatch will use a three-pronged approach to public data collection on the breeding habits of North American birds. Participants may record and report observations from their own yards or neighborhoods either independently or with the guidance of an ornithologist. Or they may opt for “virtual birding,” reporting what they see in nests monitored by cameras on the World Wide Web.

Combined, these data will provide a wealth of information not only about bird biology but about what works best in getting people excited and engaged in large-scale scientific studies of birds. Janis Dickinson, the Lab’s citizen science director, says, “One intriguing question we’d like to answer is, if people get interested in watching birds online, will they take that interest out into the real world? We’re really trying to reach out to the online audience, hoping to raise appreciation for the natural world as well as understanding of the need for conservation.”

Project NestWatch is the offspring of other successful Lab initiatives, including the Birdhouse Network’s popular Nest Box Cams, which will be expanded. Millions of people visit this site to watch live images of bluebirds, owls, osprey, and other species building nests, laying eggs, and raising their young.

Project NestWatch also owes its creation to the Nest Record Card Program, a project begun in 1965. Since that time participants have sent in more than 300,000 index cards describing where birds built their nests, how many eggs were laid, how many hatched, and much more. With the National Science Foundation grant, the Lab will finally be able to computerize that vast collection, making data submission, retrieval, and analysis fun and easy for anyone who wishes to contribute information about the nests they find in their yards and communities. Even in low-tech form, information from nest record cards has been used in compiling The Birds of North America and dozens of scientific papers over the past 30 years.

Keep watch for NestWatch — the Lab of Ornithology will be releasing more details when this fledgling is ready to fly.