Learn

find out more

Photo © Al Tuttle

How can I delete my nest site, nesting attempt, or nest visit?

First, note that your data live in your account, so deleting any data from your account will also delete it in our database. Only delete this data if it is erroneous – there is no way to recover deleted data. If you simply wish to remove old or unused nest sites from your map, please use the archive option. Archiving nests saves the data in our database but allows for a cleaner map view. If you only need to edit your nest site details, please use the “Manage Location” option that appears under each nest site in your Nest Site List.

Note that deleting data must be done on our website. Delete options are not yet available on our mobile app. In short, all visit data must be deleted before a nesting attempt can be deleted. All nesting attempts must be deleted before a nest site can be deleted.

To access your data, go to Your Data homepage and click the “Nest Site List” button above your map. You will see a list of all of your nest sites. You can use the “Edit Attempt” option to edit an attempt that is currently open, or click “View Site Summary” to view closed attempts. If you choose “View Site Summary,” the next page shows a list of all of your nest attempts for that nest site, and you should see an option to “Edit Attempt” for each. Click “Edit Attempt” for the nest attempt that contains data you wish to delete. Note: if the attempt is already closed, you will need to click the “reopen attempt for editing” button before you continue.

Then:

To delete a nest visit, you must be in “table entry mode.” Be sure to switch to the correct mode if you don’t see a table containing all of your nest visit data on the nest attempt page. You’ll see a red circle with a “minus” sign to the right of each row of data in the table on your nesting attempt page. Click this red button to delete that row of data.

To delete a nesting attempt, all nest visits must first be deleted. When all nest visits have been deleted, you’ll see a red “delete attempt” button appear on the bottom right of the nesting attempt page. Alternatively, you can return to the “View Site Summary” page under the relevant nest site. Then, navigate to your nesting attempt. If there are no nest visits listed for that nesting attempt, you’ll see the option to “delete attempt” underneath the “edit attempt” button. Otherwise, click “Edit attempt” to delete the erroneous nest visits, as described above.

To delete a nest site, all nesting attempts must be first be deleted AND it must not be part of a group. Use the Manage Groups option on Your Data homepage to remove it from any groups. Then, once all nesting data is deleted from the nest site, find the nest site listed under the green “Nest Site List” button and click “View Site Summary”. On the next page, you should see an option to “delete this site” on the top left.

Return to FAQ list

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Cornell Lab of Ornithology