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Photo © Keith Williams

September 2015 News


Massive Data Upload for California

Since May, an epic data acquisition has been quietly taking shape. The California Bluebird Recovery Program (CBRP) reached out to NestWatch regarding a six-year data set that was collected from 2006–2011 involving two dozen species. Together, we have been working to prepare the data for upload using NestWatch’s bulk import tool. This acquisition of 17,914 nest records increases the number of California records by 200 percent!

Dick Blaine, director of CBRP, said, “I am very pleased that data from the California Bluebird Recovery Program has been included in the NestWatch database and hope that it will be useful in the future for scientific research. I want to thank the NestWatch program for making the bulk upload tool available.”

This acquisition brings the total number of bulk-imported nest records to 21,683 so far this year, with approximately 2,000 more nest records in the works (also from California). We are very excited about the partnership with CBRP and encourage California residents interested in joining CBRP to contact their county coordinator.


Prizes for Timely Data Entry this Year

Autumn is less than two weeks away, and that means most NestWatchers are wrapping things up for the season. It’s time to round up those data sheets and submit your nesting data to NestWatch. If you have already completed your data entry for the season, thank you!

As a reminder, this year we’ll be giving away prizes to three lucky participants for (1) most nest attempts submitted, (2) most species monitored, and (3) a random winner with at least one nest attempt. Winners will be selected in November, with prizes shipped in time for the holidays. Our data entry tutorial videos can help newcomers get started.


Bienvenue, QuébecOiseaux!

We recently welcomed our first Canadian chapter to NestWatch, the QuébecOiseaux chapter of Québec (oiseaux is French for “birds”). Because Québec is a predominantly French-speaking province, our new chapter will soon begin translating portions of the NestWatch website into French.

Chapter coordinator Jean-Sébastien Guénette will be recruiting participants from Québec in the spring of 2016 for nest-monitoring studies, particularly focusing on Chimney Swifts, American Kestrels, Purple Martins, and Bank Swallows.

As we develop multilingual support for our website, we are also seeking volunteers who would be willing to translate NestWatch materials into Spanish. Supporting multiple languages will help us broaden our impact and involve new audiences in NestWatch and nest monitoring. Potential volunteers are encouraged to contact us regarding their availability.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Cornell Lab of Ornithology