Interdisciplinary Research & A Larger Than Life Bird Nest

Visual art meets science communication as studio art major Lou O’Neil plans a larger-than-life, accurately crafted bird nest sculpture.

O’Neil (she/they) may be an art major, but her interdisciplinary interests and academic drive have led her on a tour through several departments at the university, including art history, psychology and anthropology. Now, as she approaches her senior year, she is emerging in the biology department to work alongside Sarah Foltz, PhD, on research into bird nest material. O’Neil says opportunities to work with research outside of her major “opens up new avenues for thought and terminology for defining thought.”

O’Neil plans to build and display a huge, accurately constructed bird nest and will be using this research opportunity as a framework for their Honors College capstone project. A strong sense of curiosity for the ways of the natural world has always been present in O’Neil’s life and art. She admires the intelligence and artistry of birds and has found a particular interest in the intricacy of the nest-building process. Being able to get up close with different bird nests will give O’Neil the chance to study different types of bird nests, what the birds build with, how they’re shaped and how pieces are attached.

“I want to examine birds as craftspeople,” she says, “Viewing birds' nests as expressions of craft and architectural intelligence and converting their construction logic into sculptural form.”

O’Neil finds purpose in her curiosity and her desire to share it, bridging the gap between art and science communication, saying she wants to make people “more aware of how smart birds are in their construction by scaling it up with similar materials to appreciate the work and craftsmanship that goes into nest making.”

Foltz is excited to add O’Neil and her interdisciplinary approach to the research team. “Lou's interest in the materials used and the process of nest building makes her a good fit for this work,” she says.

Foltz has been conducting research using the bird boxes across Bissett Park, Selu Conservatory, and on campus for the past 10 years. For the last three years, Foltz’s work has focused on research into nest material. “Different bird species choose different materials to incorporate in their nests,” she explains, “and will sometimes substitute human-made materials that are in some way similar (shape, texture, etc.) to the natural materials they usually use when those items are available.”

This research helps Foltz and her team understand how different birds choose their nest materials and how that variation of material can impact their offspring. They have just begun providing nest-safe human-made materials to learn more about the functionality of those materials in the nests, how it holds together, insulates the eggs, traps moisture, etc.

Foltz also stresses the importance of this research for all, as a reminder to consider human impact on other species, saying it “helps us consider the many indirect and often less-visible ways that our actions affect wildlife.”

Foltz and a handful of students check the bird boxes twice a week from mid-March to mid-April, tracking which birds take up residence in the boxes, how many eggs they lay and how many eggs successfully hatch. Once the nestlings have fledged, the box is left abandoned, so the research team collects the nest material for their research and leaves the box empty for a new pair of birds to settle in.

By participating in this research, O’Neil is given resources, time, and opportunities to view nests, ask questions about them, and learn the terminology to understand the purpose behind the choices birds make in nest-building, so that they can accurately recreate the patterns they find in nests.

O’Neil aims to use her research with Foltz as well as her sculpture to reveal nests as intelligent, responsive and adaptive creations. She says she sees a bit of herself and her own creative process in the construction of a birds’ nest. The birds are responsive to the things around them, to their resources and how they change, “I don’t have a lot of money or a big team,” they say, “I work with what is available around me.”