Nest Quest Go: Sparrows

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: Field Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Lark Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, Eastern Towhee, and Song Sparrow. 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 Sparrow project is a collection of our nesting cards from various species, such as the Black-throated Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Field Sparrow, Lark Sparrow, Eastern Towhee, etc. Many species of sparrows are extremely territorial and protective of their nesting sites. Scientists found that Field Sparrows, who experience high rates of cowbird parasitism, flew at and attacked models of cowbirds placed close to their nest sites. We hope these cards will help us better understand these territorial nesters!

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!