eNews October 2025

Fall Gardening for Spring Nesting

What can you do this fall to grow better habitat for nesting birds in the spring? In this month’s blog, bird-friendly landscaping expert Mhairi McFarlane dives into several different activities you can do right now to help create ideal nesting space for your birds come springtime. The non-breeding season is a great time to plan—and plant—for food, shelter, and nesting materials!

How to Report Nest Takeovers by Other Birds

NestWatch is currently studying the impacts of nest usurpation on various species. A nest is “usurped” when the active nest of a bird (meaning a nest with viable eggs or young) gets taken over by another bird, which then uses it for their own breeding activities. If you observe this while monitoring a nest, be sure to use the outcome code “Failure due to takeover by another bird”—then, tell us which species took over, if you know.

If a bird happens to reuse the old, inactive nest of another bird (but does not cause a nest to fail), this is not considered a takeover. Birds sometimes reuse nests built by others, but in this case, it doesn’t meet the criteria we’re studying, which is the percentage of nests that fail due to this competitive behavior. For more on how to report this interference, brush up with our FAQ.

New Chapter in NYC!

We warmly welcome NYC Parks Wildlife Unit as the newest official NestWatch Chapter! You can learn more about how they’re helping breeding raptors in New York City on our blog.

Bulk Upload Update

We recently uploaded a combined 1,046 nest records from participants Lee Pauser, Nature Barrie, Gunnison Valley Bluebird Project, and Minsi Lake. Thank you to these contributors!

Submission of the Month

Harriet Neill recently submitted this photo (right) of a Red-shouldered Hawk nest in Indiana with three nestlings (one is out of view). Red-shouldered Hawks often reuse the same nest for many years! Want a chance to be featured here? Be sure to submit photos with your nest visit data.

NestWatch Tip of the Month

One of the great things about NestWatch is that participants can upload photos and data throughout the year, even long after a nest is finished! You can submit data from earlier this year, or even from previous years, at any time. Just be careful to enter the correct dates when reporting observations from the past, so your records can help improve our understanding of past and present nesting conditions.