Intermediate & Experienced Birding Volunteers Wanted!
Do you visit Iona regularly or have you been meaning to? We need census volunteers for our daily bird census during the fall migration (Aug 24 to Oct 4). If you’re a keen birder you can play a key role by helping us monitor bird populations at Iona Island Bird Observatory. Census volunteers are welcome to observe or assist with banding before or after census.
Census volunteers need to be able to identify at least 75% of the regularly occurring bird species at Iona Beach Regional Park by sight and sound.
The census starts one hour before sunrise and involves walking a designated route and recording all avian detections for about 1.5 hours after sunrise. It can be done by a group or an individual.
The census shift entails coming out to Iona and walking the census route for about 60-90 minutes starting from 30 min after sunrise, and creating an eBird checklist of the birds you see and hear. Intermediate and experienced birders are needed.
If you would like to come out and help but need more experience, you can sign up for a shift that already has another person signed up. If you can ID about 75% of bird species then you can be the lead census person.
For further information, check out the Census Protocol!
If you're ready to lend a hand, or want more details, reach out to [email protected].
The current dates in need of volunteers are:
September 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 24, and October 1
We can’t wait to see you at Iona this fall! Let’s make this migration season the best one yet.