Project Anniversary

Seems like a short duration but the project Active Nests is now a year old! Though looking back, I am amazed by how this project has grown despite the opposite in creating this project. Such comments I received were, there are many projects comprising nests, how is this any different? What benefit will this project serve that others wouldn't? Well, as I've said many times and with the title of the project self-explanatory, this is for active nests only. Though not being used currently by the host species are not allowed. Using only observations comprising nest building or young, we know the timeframe in which birds breed. Example being our 35 killdeer nests suggest most killdeer lay eggs in early spring, specifically April or May. Or Great Horned Owls start nesting in December or January in southern US but February and March in northern US.

What kind of achievements did this project obtain in its first year? One, we are just a couple species short of 500! That's half of all known species in the US and nest observations for about 5% of all bird species. I will like to hope we can double that or more in the next year. We also have over 3,600 observations of nests, which is huge! Our top five most observed species is the Eastern Bluebird, Great Horned Owl, American Robin, Barn Swallow and Anna's Hummingbird. I think these numbers are partial biased to me as I do go on id runs of species I know well looking for nest observations to confirm.

I have been considering adding a project curator to help me manage the boatload of observations coming in. Yes, I have been the one adding a ton of observations but many new members are submitting observations of empty nests and this is skewing any data that might be presented. So someone who is actively participating and or feels confident in the project's perimeters may ask me for admin status. Lets break some records in the next year folks!

Publicado el 28 de febrero de 2021 a las 05:53 AM por birdwhisperer