Fellow Story
Lerman launches citizen science project to study nesting populations of common backyard songbirds
A citizen science project to study nesting populations of common backyard songbirds started recently as campus researchers began visiting the yards of 60 volunteer families across western Massachusetts for the "Neighborhood Nestwatch" project.
It is a collaboration among the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, the U.S. Forest Service's Northern Research Station and UMass Amherst, led by Susannah Lerman, a postdoctoral research associate. She and colleagues count and band adult birds and teach families how to locate nests and count the number of young robins, catbirds, chickadees and five other species. It is modeled after a songbird nesting project that has run successfully in the Washington, D.C. area for 13 years.
