Centrum concludes its “Communiversity” series for the spring months by highlighting the contributions of citizen science to the field of ornithology.

Robyn Bailey, leader of the NestWatch citizen science project on nesting birds for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, had originally planned to talk about the contributions of bird-watchers around the world at the Port Townsend High School auditorium on Monday, April 13.

While Bailey will no longer be able to appear in person in Port Townsend, she’ll still address her audience at 5:30 p.m. on April 13, since she’ll be speaking online.

“I’m disappointed at not being able to visit the region, but I’m grateful that we can pivot toward conducting this event online,” Bailey said. “It’s important to find ways of keeping these events going, and it’s nice to know they’ll be recorded for audiences later on. Plus, it offers an increased capacity for attendees, so that’s a silver lining.”

Bailey feels strongly about sharing her information and insights with the public, in part because of how much the public has shared with programs such as hers.

NestWatch has monitored nesting birds’ reproductive successes since the 1960s, and hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists each year reporting data that’s contributed to a broader picture of how birds are affected by habitat loss, pollution, disease, climate and other environmental changes.

“Most of what we know about ornithology comes from citizen science,” Bailey said. “In 2019, one of the largest studies on the status of birds found that we’d lost nearly 3 billion birds since the 1960s, and those findings were underpinned by citizen science. We have people who keep counts of birds in every state, which allows us to track the impacts of things like climate change on bird populations.”

The NestWatch long-term database is the nation’s richest source of information on avian reproductive biology.

Bailey said such ornithology benefits not only from the level of interest that members of the public have in conducting citizen science such as bird-watching, but also from the number of conservancy organizations such as the Audubon Society that have furnished those citizen scientists with resources and avenues to collect and report data.

“It’s been so successful that we’ve seen other fields of study follow suit,” Bailey said. “This has yielded real-time data on emergencies ranging from the Australian brush fires to the coronavirus. And when you have a base of preexisting hobbyists such as amateur astronomers, that obviously helps as well. If you’re trying to study, say, microorganisms, these conditions don’t apply as much.”

What that citizen science has uncovered is startling to Bailey, not only for revealing how many birds have been winnowed from the population, but also for how many types and species of birds have felt that reduction in numbers, ranging from shorebirds, grassland and arboreal birds to those that appear in your backyard.

“At the same time, there are lessons to be learned from the species that have done relatively well,” Bailey said. “Ducks have benefitted from wetland conservation policies and sportsmen being interested in their well-being. Eagles are protected by the law. And turkeys have benefitted from our restoration of grassland and reforestation efforts. These species can help point the way forward for others.”

Both Bailey and Centrum Executive Director Rob Birman expressed confidence in the online venue, which can accommodate 1,000 attendees virtually, rather than 200 physically.

Birman believes this technology could allow Centrum to continue many of its lecture programs rather than canceling or adding them to a backlog of rescheduled events.

For more information or to buy tickets, log onto centrum.org/tickets/individual-tickets.