In Key West, Florida, older adults take part in the Audubon’s annual Christmas Bird Count, the longest-running citizen scientist project in the world. Photo by Luke Franke courtesy of Audubon

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During her childhood in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Jill MacNeice was always in the water, dreaming of scuba diving with octopuses and legendary undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau.

Now living in Washington, D.C., she is still in the water, taking water samples from the Potomac River with a volunteer team of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, a watchdog advocacy group that combats pollution and advocates for clean water. She’s one of thousands of Americans who spend their free time as “citizen scientists,” gathering data for research and other projects.

National Geographic defines citizen science as “the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge.” Projects usually do not require specialized knowledge, and volunteers often train new ones.

One of the oldest citizen-science projects is the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count, started in 1900. Thousands of Americans join volunteers in 20 other countries to compile the annual census.

“We truly value the work of citizen scientists,” Libby Lyons, president of a local Audubon chapter called the Northern Virginia Bird Alliance, said in an email. “For decades, they have organized local volunteers to collect data, which give … valuable insights into changes in bird populations and the environment and help mitigate threats to birds and other wildlife.”

Local impact

The importance of MacNeice’s work was accentuated last winter, when a Maryland sewer line collapse sent more than 200 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River, the drinking water source for five million people in the Washington region.

From April to October, MacNeice takes weekly water samples at sites along the Potomac River from Maryland’s Seneca Creek to Belle View Marina in Fairfax County, Virginia, part of a network that extends to Colonial Beach, Virginia.

She samples for e. coli bacteria and turbidity, records air and water temperatures, and notes weather conditions. Within five hours, her samples arrive at the organization’s floating laboratory at National Harbor, where analysts determine if the water is safe.

MacNeice kayaks on the Potomac yearround, but her volunteer work has introduced her to “many interesting spots I never knew about,” she said.

“This [project] is a great opportunity to participate in citizen science and work on something dear to my heart that makes a difference. When you spread it out over many people, it becomes important — and that’s kind of special.”

As a former digital information designer for Marriott and the Library of Congress, MacNeice is also calling on her professional skills and digitizing the riverkeepers’ information collection processes.

“In this work, I can combine my professional skills with childhood fantasies,” she said.

Birdman of Annandale

Identifying birds and analyzing their behavior is not hush-hush top secret like Larry Cartwright’s former career in military intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency, but it is just as intriguing for the Annandale resident, a longtime birdwatcher, teacher and student.

Cartwright, who studied the clandestine military machinations of the Soviet Union, Iraq and Afghanistan, retired in 2014. Now he often leaves home before sunrise, binoculars and spotting scope in hand, to scour the skies, waterways, ground and trees for birds.

Since 1993, he has led an annual breeding bird survey for the Friends of Dyke Marsh, a survey that does not just identify the birds in the Fairfax County marsh but confirms they are, in fact, breeding. Volunteers observe and record those telltale behaviors, like taking nesting materials to a nest or feeding nestlings.

Cartwright is so enthralled by birds that he organizes three additional annual surveys: the Northern Virginia Bird Alliance’s winter waterfowl survey, since 2008; the bluebird nestbox survey at Huntley Meadows Park, since 2000; and the Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Northern Virginia and Maryland, since 2004. For each of them, he recruits volunteers and prepares detailed reports.

“I’m fascinated by birds,” he explained. “In today’s world, everything online seems contrived. When I go into the woods and see nature, that is the one thing you can bet on. It’s a true aspect of life. They breed, are born, live and die. It’s a reality that we share.”

Not surprisingly, Cartwright teaches bird-related classes at Northern Virginia Community College. Birds have long intrigued people, from early sculptors to the writers of the Bible to 18th-century Japanese artists, he pointed out.

Cartwright’s curiosity about birds started in childhood when he accompanied his uncle in Pennsylvania on hunting trips.

“Sitting in a deer stand freezing my butt off, I became fascinated when a pileated woodpecker would fly by,” he said. He was mesmerized by the grouses’ drumming and elaborate courtship displays.

“The depressing part is that some birds are disappearing,” he lamented. “If it all disappears, the world will be a very sad place to live in. What affects them affects us.”

Cartwright cites the adverse impacts of climate change as “one of our biggest challenges,” but adds, “There’s something we can do about it. The more you do, the more you learn.”

Gung-ho for native plants

When Clifton resident Margaret Fisher read entomologist Doug Tallamy’s first book, Bringing Nature Home, “It completely changed my life,” she said. “The book was revolutionary.”

The book maintains that everyone can address the biodiversity crisis by planting native plants, which, Fisher pointed out, are “the basis of the ecosystem that feed the insects that birds eat. Without native plants, we won’t have insects, birds or anything else.”

Fisher, a rheumatologist and internal medicine physician for Kaiser Permanente, got hooked on native plants after she retired from her medical career in 2017.

While helping a local high school with their fundraiser, she decided that instead of compiling their traditional recipe book, she would write a booklet of gardening tips and explore how to garden in an environmentally beneficial way. Then she went door-to-door in her town of Clifton and signed up 110 property owners who promised not to use insecticides.

These first steps inspired her to bolster a fledgling organization, Plant NOVA Natives, a coalition designed to influence the landscaping culture of Northern Virginia. For the last 12 years, she has expanded the group to more than 100 partners, agencies, nonprofits and garden centers.

She helped write Native Plants for Northern Virginia and organized 65 volunteers to label native plants in garden centers so customers don’t have to research whether a plant is native or not.

“The centers really like it, and we’ve seen a noticeable increased inventory of native plants,” she said.

Fisher conducts conferences for landscape professionals in English in summer and Spanish in winter, encouraging them to use native plants.

She also manages Fairfax Trees Rescuers, volunteers who help the million trees at risk in Fairfax County from infestations like English ivy.

“If we don’t do this as a community-wide effort, by the end of century, we will have lost most of native trees and natural areas,” Fisher said. “We must act now when we can prevent that. The longer we wait, the more expensive it gets.”

Another priority is the pollinator pathways project, which encourages neighbors to band together and create connected corridors, avoid insecticide use, and plant native plants.

With five neighborhoods on board so far, Fisher is pleased to see momentum growing.

“We make it easy for someone to do something, and they will think of themselves as environmentalists. If we can get them to do it, they will be more committed and do more,” she said.

“If you hope people will act and assume only one percent will, one percent of 1.2 million people in Fairfax County is still a lot of people. I don’t think it’s impossible, but we need a lot of dedicated people to make it happen,” she said.

Whether it’s saving injured bats, monitoring frogs, analyzing spring buds, counting salamander eggs in vernal pools or digging for artifacts, citizen scientists are giving back — and providing some human capital and data to improve our world.

“I have a motivation to do good things in the world, to help others,” Fisher said.

“It’s fun to actually become the steward of your property and save the little insects and birds right here. Every time you do that, you are taking a step to saving our environment.”