Important Birding Area News
On June 19th and 20th we will be going out to Noxubee NWR to do Important Bird Area (IBA) breeding season surveys. A few of you have expressed interest in attending and helping out which is STRONGLY APPRECIATED. In fact, as Hal and I will be leaving soon, we really need replacement folks to take over the monitoring duties. We’ve had a fantastic time surveying thus far as I know all attendees will. For those of you who would like to attend a training session for the IBA monitoring before we conduct the surveys, I would be glad to do so. For training, May 25 to June 17 Tuesday through Thursday mornings (leaving around 6 a.m. and returning around 10 a.m.) work best for me, but I can work with others’ schedules if necessary. Hal and I will be doing point counts for the next four weekends so I cannot be available then. . If you are interested in attending the training session, please contact me a.s.a.p. and we’ll arrange a date that will work for us all. Below are details of what the survey entails. If you have any questions about this IBA survey, please call me at 901-488-3915 or Hal at 662-418-5846, or you can email us at kbaker(at)cfr.msstate.edu or halmitchell(at)gmail.com. [replace (at) with @] Hope to see ya’ll soon! Kristina Baker IBA overview · Monitoring periods (one survey session per period): 1. Breeding season: Late May to early July 2. Fall migration: September to October 3. Winter: January to February · Five 300-meter transects in the following habitats: 1. Bottomland hardwood forest 2. Lake/riparian 3. Upland Pine Forest 4. Prairie 5. Moist soil unit · One hour per transect. This means covering approximately 25 meters for every five minutes of the survey. · Record every bird heard and/or seen and its orientation and distance from the location on the transect where it was observed. · Record habitat (vegetation) once annually and during the breeding season monitoring. Datasheets are provided for this. Photographs must be taken at each transect. |