Nest Quest Go: Bird Medley

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, nestled in the Finger Lakes region of New York, is a world-renowned ornithological research, education, and conservation facility. Among our collections are more than 300,000 nest records from the North American Nest Record Card Program that ran from the 1960s until the early 2000s. Some cards pre-date the 1960s, likely because some naturalists were collecting this information before the formal program existed. Thousands of nesting birds, were observed by citizen scientists, who then submitted detailed accounts of bird nesting behavior.

[Top left to bottom right: Verdin, Mountain Bluebird, Red-faced Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Clark's Nutcracker, Costa's Hummingbird, Northern Cardinal, Budgerigar, Yellow Warbler (Northern). Photo credits on FAQ page.]

NestWatch, a citizen-science project of the Lab, is working to transcribe these data in hopes of better understanding the nesting patterns of North American birds. Valuable scientific questions can be asked and answered regarding the nesting behavior of birds over time by examining historical records. We hope to bring new discoveries to light using these previously hidden datasets.

The last of 47 projects, this collection contains the leftover nest record cards for many species which we decided to combine together into a single project. It includes all of the nest records for the Common Poorwill, a nocturnal species which resides in harsh desert environments. When cold nights limit the availability of the bird’s insect diet, it goes into a state of torpor in order to save energy, during which it reduces its body temperatures to 41 degrees fahrenheit and decreases oxygen consumption by over 90%. Also included exclusively in this project are records for the Clark's Nutcracker, a mountain dwelling species which uses a pouch under its tongue to carry seeds long distances in order to store them for later use.

The research potential of this information is invaluable. Join us in meeting our goal of transcribing all of these nest records to better understand and protect birds. With over 30+ years of data we hope to be able to identify some of the challenges that have been impacting the lives of nesting birds such as; predation, pollution, cowbird parasitism, human disturbance, weather, etc. Along the way we hope to learn more about the citizen scientists behind the cards and preserve the valuable data they spent hours collecting. For the love of birds and people, happy transcription!