Avian Nest Box Monitoring Network

Overview

Avian Nest Box Monitoring Network

Summary
The main objective of the avian nest box monitoring network is to investigate population level parameters such as survival, nest productivity, and return rates or recruitment into the population. All adults and nestlings western bluebirds are banded and return band numbers are recorded. These data are used in a population viability analysis that can determine the status of the population and potential impacts of contaminants. Since the beginning of the project, negative impacts to bluebirds have been found from the drought, tree-die off, and experimental challenges to immune function during development. Positive impacts to western bluebirds have been found from the Cerro Grande fire. No major impacts have been documented for contaminants, tree thinning, or West Nile Virus on the western bluebirds.

Program Information
In 1997, the Avian Nest Box Monitoring Network was established on Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos County, and U.S. Forest Service land in northern New Mexico to investigate the health and condition of cavity-nesting bird populations on the Pajarito Plateau.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the magnitude and sources of ecological risks from contaminants and other environmental stressors for cavity-nesting birds at LANL. The main objective is to evaluate the ecological and physiological costs of exposure to various contaminants at LANL and their potential impact on population processes.

During the past two decades it has become increasingly important to be able to predict risks from potential adverse effects of exposure to chemical and physical hazards in the environment. This has resulted in the critical need for estimates of the relationship between exposure of organisms to contaminants and the response of the population.

This project was started with 450 nest boxes and now has over 850 nest boxes placed in potentially contaminated and noncontaminated areas on LANL. Data on individual bird health and condition and population-level parameters have been collected for ten consecutive years through 2006.

Since it began, the nest box monitoring project has seen a number of significant events:

• the Cerro Grande fire, which burned a quarter of the boxes and several areas of western bluebird habitat
• several years of severe drought
• a large-scale tree thinning project
• an 80% mortality of pine trees from bark beetles in several of the areas where nest boxes are placed
• the death of many of the trees on which boxes were placed during the 2002 breeding season

Although each of these events will undoubtedly add variation in any study attempting to understand the environment, it also gives us the opportunity to gain insight into the effects of environmental change and stress.

Bird Species

Bird Species

The primary species that occupies the nest boxes is the western bluebird (Sialia mexicana), a widely distributed, sexually dichromatic, and monogamous species.

The ash-throated flycatcher (Myiarchus cinerascens) also occupies the nest boxes but is not as widely distributed or sexually dichromatic.

Both species nest in secondary nest cavities, are insectivorous during the breeding season, and use small amounts of grit in their gizzards that are potentially important exposure pathways.

The Avian Nest Box Monitoring Network also gets Mountain Chickadees, House Finches, and House Wrens that occupy the boxes.

Network Map

Map of the Avian Nestbox Network

Hi Res Image (3600x4700)

Report Downed Nest Boxes

Report Downed Nest Boxes & Migratory Bird Injuries or Mortalities

• If you see a downed nest box or have questions concerning the program, contact Jeanne Fair (667-5659 | jmfair@lanl.gov)
• If you find an injured bird, contact a licensed rehabilitator at the Santa Fe Raptor Center (662-7418)
• Report all bird mortalities at LANL to Leslie Hansen (665-9873 | hansenl@lanl.gov)

Publications and Reports

Project Publications and Reports

• Colestock, K.L. and Fair, J.M. 2005. Avian Individual and Population Health on Los Alamos National Laboratory 2005: Foraging Effects and Egg Contaminant Residues. Los Alamos National Laboratory Report, LAUR-05-7272
• Fair, J.M., L. Maestas, E. Powell, and K. Burnett. 2008. Avian Individual and Population Health on Los Alamos National Laboratory 2008 (LA-UR-08-06927)
• Fair, J.M., C. Hathcock, and K.Colestock. 2004. Contaminants in Eggs of Western Bluebirds and Ash-Throated Flycatchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico. Los Alamos National Laboratory Report, LA-UR-04-0991
• Fair, J.M. and O.B. Myers. 2002 Contaminants and eggshell quality, clutch size, sex ratio, and hatching success of western bluebirds and ash-throated flycatchers: a landscape perspective. Environmental Pollution 118:321-330
• Fair. J.M. and O.B. Myers. 2002. The ecological and physiological costs of lead on developing western bluebirds.  Ecotoxicology 11:53-62
• Fair, J.M., O.B Myers, and R.E. Ricklefs. 2003. Immune response, growth, and mortality of nestling western bluebirds and ash-throated flycatchers in proximity to soil contaminants. Ecological Applications. 13:1817-1829
• Fair, J.M. and S. Whitaker. Accepted with Revisions. Avian cell-mediated immune response to drought. Wilson Journal of Ornithology
• Fair, J.M., S.J. Whitaker and B. Pearson. 2007. Sources of variation in haematocrit in birds. Ibis 149: 535-552
• Whitaker, S. and Fair, J.M. 2002. The costs of immunological challenge to developing mountain chickadee (Poecile gambeli) in the wild. Oikos 99:161-165