It’s that time of year again, to try finding volunteers who can help with the annual USGS Breeding Bird Survey. Iowa currently has 8 of 32 Iowa routes vacant and we badly need volunteers to help fill those. The BBS is the longest continuously conducted avian survey in North America and provides extremely important population trend data for avian ecologists, researchers and managers across the continent. This is “citizen science” at its highest level, and its perhaps one of the best contributions experienced birders can make to the business of avian research. Also, it’s just a lot of fun!
Routes are 25 miles long, with a stop every 1/2 mi., for a total of 50 count-points per route, and it takes approximately 4 hours to conduct a survey (plus travel time to and from route). Each route is conducted only one time annually, between mid-May and the end of June, on fairly calm, rainless mornings beginning just before sunrise. All birds seen or heard within a 1/4 mi. radius are recorded on data sheets, which are later tallied and can be entered online or mailed to the BBS lab. For anyone who has NOT conducted a route in recent years, even if an experienced birder, there is a required short online training course (roughly an hour or so in length), that deals mostly with survey protocols and some bird identification (there are also some optional quizzes to test and improve your song ID skills). Once the course is completed, volunteers are assigned a code number, maps and survey sheets will be mailed to you, and you can use your code number to access and enter data online. Volunteers do need to agree to conduct surveys for at least 3 years, to assure consistency of data for any particular route. Here are the current vacant route names (with route number) and approximate location starting points: 004 Bedford---near Missouri border in Taylor County 011 Red Rock—near Red Rock Lake in Marion Co. 020 Hudson—south of Waterloo in Black Hawk Co. 021 Dinsdale—near Traer in Tama Co. 022 Kanawha—south of Britt in Hancock Co. 034 Rock Valley—near Rock Valley in western Sioux Co. 118 Lafayette—between Center Point and Central City in Linn Co. 131 Burchinal—near Garner and Clear Lake in Hancock Co. If you think you’d like to become a BBS volunteer, please reply to this email with your route of choice. I will assign any new volunteers on a first-request basis. You will need to provide full name, mailing address, a telephone number and email address so I can enter it into the BBS State Coordinator’s web page. This is information required of all volunteers, so the BBS lab or I can contact you with new/revised instructions, questions about data entry, etc. Thanks for your consideration! DOUG HARR Iowa BBS State Coordinator Ogden, IA --- Please contribute your sightings to our list; it is only as good as members make it! --- Birding channel recommendation for FRS/GMRS radio use: Primary selection; channel 5/0 , alternate selection; channel 6/0 --- This mailing list is sponsored by the Iowa Ornithologists' Union. Membership available on-line at http://www.iowabirds.org/iou/PayDues.aspx. ----- You are currently subscribed to ia-bird as: [email protected]
