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Nest Monitoring
Home | On the Wing News | Directory of Resources | Introduction | Observations Help with Monitoring You may find that time is short and even the couple of minutes a week needed to monitor each nest and record your observations is difficult to find. There are a number of ways to solve this problem. Local Audubon groups or ornithological societies are often willing to help with monitoring. An arrangement can sometimes be made to have these groups monitor and manage your boxes and provide you with the results at the end of the breeding season. Partnerships can be set up with schools in the area. Students monitoring the nests will learn about the nesting cycle of different bird species and the habitats in which they live. One method to involve both employees and the local community is an "Adopt a Bluebird/Nestbox" program. Boxes can be put up for adoption and marketed as "real estate". Dow Chemical in Granville, Ohio successfully set up such a program as a contest. Obligations of the adoptive "parents" include weekly monitoring and yearly maintenance of their box. Information containing the location of the boxes and contest guidelines were distributed to all buildings to encourage employees and their families to participate. A team-monitoring system was implemented with two people per box. This allows one person to be responsible if the other is on vacation or tied up in meetings. Other incentive programs could include a small prize for monitoring a nest for one month. Do not install more boxes than you can realistically monitor. It is preferable to erect a smaller number of boxes and monitor them weekly, than to leave a large number unmanaged. If you have problems monitoring your boxes regularly, WHC is able to provide guidance.
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