Nest Quest Go: Western Bluebirds

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, nestled in the Finger Lakes Region, is a world-renowned ornithological research, education, and conservation facility. Amongst 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 predate the 1960s, but they are not the majority. Thousands of nesting birds, including Western Bluebirds, were observed by citizen scientists, who then submitted detailed accounts of bird nesting behavior.

NestWatch, a citizen-science project at the Lab, is working to transcribe this 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.

Western Bluebirds are a well-loved bird whose population has benefited from the increased use of nest boxes over the past thirty years. Understanding the historical nesting patterns and success or failures of this species will help to inform what we know today about their populations and how to better protect them into the future.

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!