Signs of Spring at St. Michael's: Winter Term Project Yields First Batch of Hatched Chicks

Students from Mr. Todd Council’s Winter Term Ornithology class are still busy learning about birds. As part of the class, the students built and installed four nest boxes on campus to provide nesting sites for some of the native birds that share our beautiful campus. After Winter Term ended, some of the students continued to monitor the nests, following the protocol established by Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology. We were excited to see birds beginning to build nests in early March and completing them just before spring break. 

When we returned, we were greeted by four completed nests, holding a total of 24 eggs. Two of the nests belong to Carolina Chickadees and two to Black-crested Titmouses. This week, the students received a big surprise when the first young started to hatch. This video shows a nest of newly hatched Carolina Chickadees less than 24 hours old and this one shows Black-crested Titmouse hatchlings

Now that the young are hatching, the class can only visit the nests twice a week to minimize stress on the newly hatched birds and to allow the parents to bring the hatchlings much-needed food. All the data from each nest visit is being sent to Cornell Labs of Ornithology as part of its NestWatch citizen science project. Data from the birds will be used our scientists studying nesting behaviors and success rates for our native birds.
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