Winter Nest Observations

With this project becoming more popular than I ever anticipated, I'm having a little trouble keeping up with the constant additions to the project. Though I've mentioned this before, I believe it's time to give another reminder to observers before they add their sighting.

Active Nests is only for active nests. This means there is current activity at the nest site, such as eggs, young, building or even managing nests. I've added three winter observations this year, a Cooper's Hawk bringing a twig to a nest that she has probably used for years, a juvenile Red-tailed pairing itself up with an adult in a known nest as they gathered twigs and managed the nest, and finally a pair of Bald Eagles just sitting in the nest, not doing anything but nevertheless in the nest. These should be the only exceptions to submitting a winter nest observation.

Why is it so important that nests have to be "active" to be in this project? Anyone can find a bird's nest in the winter time. Leaves are gone and you see the remnants of the summer season, but other than location and environment, it doesn't contribute much scientific data. The propose of Active Nests is to measure the timeframe in which birds breed. For example, through this project, we can see that Eastern Bluebirds can have eggs or young in their nest anywhere from February to November. They typically lay 4-6 blue eggs, occasionally white. The propose of this project is to monitor the species' presence at the nest site. As of lately, I'm seeing tons of robin nests that are clearly empty and in winter months. This is not the project to be sending those observations. These sightings will be much more appropriate for Bird Nests of North American or Eggs and Nests.

I think the users that have contributed so far and as a recommendation for next year, find the nests I mentioned about before. Birds often use nests year after year and you can come back in the summertime. If it's a species that builds a new nest every year, judge how the environment is like for old nests and see how to apply that knowledge to finding new nests. Winter is a great time to start getting some notes down. Good luck everyone!

Publicado el jueves, 17 de diciembre de 2020 a las 06:14 AM por birdwhisperer birdwhisperer

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