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Most Wanted Birds

© Fred J. Kane

MOST WANTED BIRDS This article is from Cornell Labs. Allison Wells gave me permision to reprint this news release.

What is perhaps the most effective way to help declining bird species? Get the public involved, say researchers with The Birdhouse Network (TBN), a citizen-science project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. To draw interest, awareness, and participation in the project, the staff recently announced "TBN's Most Wanted," a list of species for which the project has little or no nesting information.

The Birdhouse Network asks people of all ages and backgrounds to put up nest boxes ("birdhouses") and collect valuable information about each box-location, habitat characteristics, and number of eggs and nestlings in the nest. They report this information over the Internet to Cornell Lab researchers, who analyze the data to help determine what if any environmental factors contribute to nesting success.

Since 1997, TBN has produced an annual "Top 10" list of the most commonly reported cavity-nesting birds. That list invariably includes the usual suspects-Tree Swallows, Eastern Bluebirds, House Wrens, House Sparrows, Mountain Bluebirds, and Western Bluebirds. This past year, for the first time, the researchers looked at nesting attempts of cavity-nesting birds from the bottom of the list and were concerned to find that they had fewer than 50 records for some 16 species of cavity nesters.

In response, they developed "TBN's Most Wanted" list to help answer questions such as, why are there so little data on these species? Are they truly rare or are their habitats too remote for participants in the project to access? Are they finding enough natural nest sites in the wild, thereby eliminating the need for human-provided nest boxes? Or are TBN participants simply not actively trying to attract them?

Some of these species are in fact showing population declines, according to Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data collected and analyzed by the U.S. Geological Survey. The Prothonotary Warbler, a stunning, golden-colored bird of the southeastern United States, has declined in numbers some 42 percent over the last 20 years. The Mountain Chickadee, which breeds in coniferous and mixed woodlands in western mountain regions, has declined 42 percent over the same time frame. Eastern Screech-Owl, a species that uses a wide range of habitats throughout the East, has declined 23 percent, and American Kestrels, a beautiful little falcon that breeds extensively throughout the United States and Canada, 1 8 percent.

The Birdhouse Network strives to pick up where the Breeding Bird Survey leaves off. "BBS data show that some of the species on our Most Wanted List are declining. Now The Birdhouse Network is working to determine the reasons for these declines," says Tina Phillips, TBN's project leader. "To do that, we're asking the public to get involved and share their observations of cavity-nesting birds."

The copyright of the article Most Wanted Birds in Birding is owned by Fred J. Kane. Permission to republish Most Wanted Birds in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.