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Peering into the Lives
Four years have passed since the Lab launched its historic National Science Experiments (NSEs) and ushered in a new era of citizen science. As many readers know, the NSEs are large-scale research projects conducted by the bird-watching public. For our first three projects—the Seed Preference Test, Project PigeonWatch, and Project Tanager—thousands of people across the continent gathered information to address ornithological questions whose answers require vast amounts of data. Following the "research kit" model developed by Project FeederWatch in 1987, participants received instruction booklets, educational aids, and data forms to be filled out and sent to the Lab for analysis. These projects have proven successful. The Seed Preference Test, which determined which seeds North American birds like best, involved about 17,000 individual and family participants who studied the birds at their backyard feeders over two winter seasons. Project Tanager also involved several thousand participants, many of whom worked in groups to gather three years’ worth of data on the relationship between forest size and the presence of tanagers. And Project Pigeon Watch, which presently involves about 300 youth groups as well as several hundred individuals, continues to gather data on pigeon biology in cities nationwide. Lab biologists have found the information collected by these projects to be ripe for scientific analysis, and educational evaluations have shown that project participants learn a great deal about birds and scientific methodology. That leaves a question: How can we expand our citizen-science model? How can we continue the effort to answer large-scale questions whose answers are important to ornithologists and conservationists, while involving an ever-wider segment of the public? Answer number one: we keep the original projects going. Although the Seed Preference Test is unlikely to be repeated, Project Tanager has already evolved into a new project called Birds in Forested Landscapes, designed to gather information critical for the conservation of North American birds (see page 4). We also plan to expand Project PigeonWatch significantly. Answer number two: with start-up funding from the National Science Foundation, we have developed a new project called the Cornell Nest Box Network (CNBN). Set to debut this spring, CNBN will take citizen science to an entirely new level, gathering data at a scale that will dwarf our other projects and allowing participants to guide the direction of our research. The overall structure of CNBN will resemble the original NSEs: participants will receive research kits, collect data, send the data to the Lab for analysis, and read the compiled results in Birdscope. "The research kits will resemble those used in our other citizen-science projects," says Pixie Senesac, the project’s chief scientist and research coordinator. "A reference booklet will describe the basic biology, life history, and identification of cavity-nesting birds. It will also explain how to build, place, and monitor nest boxes. A separate instruction booklet will describe how to collect the necessary data." Why did we choose cavity-nesting birds as our newest focus of study? One reason is that birds in nest boxes can be observed closely without harming either the birds or the humans watching them. Therefore, it is relatively easy for volunteers to collect large amounts of data for widespread experiments. Says AndrŽ Dhondt, director of Bird Population Studies at the Lab and principal investigator of CNBN, "Cavity-nesting birds are model species for studying a wide range of important questions in the fields of population ecology, conservation biology, behavioral ecology, and population genetics." If that makes the project sound complicated, take heart. CNBN staff are presently developing materials that will allow birders at all levels, including young children, to participate. In fact, at its most basic level, CNBN is no more complicated than Project FeederWatch. Beginners, or advanced participants with little time, can contribute enormously to the understanding of cavity-nesting birds simply by monitoring nest boxes and collecting basic information, such as which species are using them, the time of egg laying, and the number of eggs laid. "This kind of information, compiled and analyzed across North America, is really needed," says Dhondt, who studied cavity-nesting birds in Europe for 25 years before his appointment as the Morgens Professor of Ornithology at Cornell in 1994. "Lots of nest boxes have been put up, but they are infrequently monitored, and data about the birds that use them are generally not analyzed. So, the biological effect of nest boxes on bird populations is not well known. Gathering basic information about nest-box inhabitants, and then giving that information scientific scrutiny, is the first step toward assessing this affect." But collecting such information is just the tip of the CNBN iceberg. For networkers who really want to dig into the study of cavity-nesting birds, the project will offer much more opportunity. Depending on participants’ interests, the amount of time they wish to commit, and their level of ornithological ability, they can collect data for one or more CNBN studies, conceived by Dhondt and David Winkler, professor of ornithology at Cornell and a co-principal investigator with the project. One such experiment will examine whether birds prefer clean nest boxes or ones containing nests from the previous year. "Most people who maintain nest boxes remove old nests each year," explains Winkler, "to get rid of ectoparasites such as fleas, blowflies, and mites. But some researchers have proposed that it is actually better to leave the old nests in place, because they also contain predaceous insects that keep the parasites in check. We don’t really know which the birds prefer, and the small amount of research done so far is contradictory." Winkler has been studying Tree Swallows in Ithaca, New York, for more than a decade and has shown that swallows who line their nests with more feathers will fledge their young earlier. "The feather experiment promises to be one of the most entertaining projects in CNBN," says Winkler. "These birds are very interested in using the feathers of other species to line their nests, and it is amazing how readily they will take feathers from people. The feather experiment will help us understand how the numbers of feathers in Tree Swallow nests vary over the broad range of climates they experience across North America. It will also allow us to measure how valuable these feathers are to the birds by testing how close to a human the birds will come to gather feathers." Other experiments will investigate which cavity-nesting species eat calcium, provided in the form of eggshells near nest boxes; this study may help document the effects of acid rain. And for participants who want to get really involved, we are developing a study to determine how far birds move from their birthplace when it’s time to breed. This last study-which at first will only be open to New York Residents- will involve widespread banding of birds and will require special training, with the wholehearted support of the National Bird Banding Laboratory. "The instruction booklet will explain how to conduct all of these studies," says Senesac. "But during this first year, the breeding season of 1997, the experimental procedures we have drafted will all need to be tested. So, all participants this year will be helping us to fine-tune our data collection methods." This project will also extend the Lab’s original citizen-science projects in its educational reach. Once we get the procedures sorted out, the research kit will explain how participants can analyze their own data, and it will solicit suggestions for additional experiments. Moreover, it will encourage people to think about their results and to present their findings at local meetings and in local publications. The project will also introduce a new concept that we have been planning for some time: local project representatives, who can help participants in their own communities. These folks—we might call them ambassadors, or community mentors, or master birders—will be trained at the Lab, or in later years, at workshops across the country. So, once we have this process worked out, participants who contact Lab staff with a question or problem will be referred to someone locally who can offer advice and assistance. Karen Edelstein, CNBN education coordinator, adds that youth groups should find participation appropriate for a club project. "Cavity-nesting birds have lots of appeal to kids," she points out. "Our experiences have shown that observing animals up close, especially young animals, is one of the best ways to get people interested in them. We are already working with groups such as 4-H Clubs, Girl Scouts, and Boys and Girls Clubs to integrate the project into their environmental activities." Why not join this ambitious new effort? If you already have nest boxes in your yard or community, you can study them. If you’ve been thinking about putting some boxes up, CNBN will offer the perfect opportunity. And if you’re a youth group leader, we invite your help with our pilot youth efforts. Whatever your level of interest, we hope you’ll get involved.
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