Volunteer Opportunities

Hamilton Sanctuary Work Days

Saturday, October 15, 9:00 am – noon
Work Day, Hamilton Sanctuary, West Bath

For more information call Glenn Evans at 443-9652.

Marine Mammal Strandings

Linda Doughty, Stranding Coordinator, Department of Marine Resources. (557-0109) See also Marine Resources Facebook Page.

Beached Bird Surveys

Beach walkers needed for Popham, Seawall and other beaches in Mid-Coast Maine

SEANET is studying seabird mortality by surveying beaches for injured and deceased birds.   Because regular monitoring of beached birds has not been done in this region, these surveys will provide baseline information about causes of bird mortality from oil spills to disease.  

Even in the absence of regular beached bird surveys, we are interested in reports from birders about dead birds washing up on shore in large numbers.

Contact: Doug Suitor at dougsuitor@gmail.com or Linda Woodard at marshmavin@yahoo.com.

USGS Bird Phenology Program

The North American Bird Phenology Program houses a unique and largely forgotten collection of six million Migration Observer Cards that illuminate migration patterns and population status of birds in North America. These handwritten cards contain almost all of what was known of bird distribution and natural history from the Second World War back to the later part of the 19th century.

Today, those records are being processed and placed into a modern database for analysis. This information will be used, along with recently collected arrival times of migrant birds, in conjunction with historical weather data to show how migration is effected by climate change. The information from this analysis will provide critical information on bird distribution, migration timing and migration pathways and how they are changing.

BPP relies heavily on the participation of citizen scientists. We currently house six million cards which volunteers can enter into our database from their home computers. If you would like to get involved with this program, please go to “Become a Participant.”