Providing Nest Materials for Birds
Some people like to provide nesting materials for use by the birds in their neighborhood. When providing nest materials, it’s important to consider what your local species naturally use in their nests, while also avoiding any hazards that human-made items may pose. In this month’s blog post, you can read about which materials are safe to provide for birds and which to avoid.
Mass Data Upload
This month we were glad to be able to upload 372 nest records from Mass Audubon’s Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary. The dataset spanned five years and encompassed five species of cavity-nesting birds. We thank Elissa Landre and Kaleigh Keohane for facilitating the data transfer and archiving process, and we are grateful to the many volunteers who collected the data over the years. Old datasets never go out of style at NestWatch!
Updates to Your Nest Map
We recently changed the way nest maps look in the Your Data dashboard. Most notably, nests that are very close together now appear as clusters when you are zoomed out. Upon zooming in, the clusters break apart to help you edit individual nests more easily. If you have paired nest boxes, colony-nesting birds, or just have many nests in a small area, this will enable you to edit them more easily, even if the markers are right on top of each other. This update also helps the Your Data page load faster—perfect for those with many nest sites.
Another update you’ll notice is that nests with eggs or young can now be spotted at a glance with icons on the nest markers. These icons already appear in our mobile app, but are now on the website as well. The icons serve as a visual reminder of what stage your nest was in the last time you observed it. As always, we appreciate your feedback on how we can keep improving.
Our Annual Report Is Here
The 2020 NestWatch Digest is here! Our annual report is a look back at the 2020 nesting season and includes research highlights, data summaries, and some of our favorite participant photos. We hope you enjoy the report, which you can view and download here.