On Monday I was in a meeting of field biologists from here in Georgia
organizing a NAAMP frog survey in Georgia. Anyone interested in running
set routes about 3 times per year long term, volunteers will be needed.
You do have to pass a test on frogcall ID. The survey is very closely
locked in to the protocol of the breeding bird survey system. Anyone
interested can look here to find out more about the survey protocols,
etc. If you are interested in volunteering in Georgia, the contact
person is John Jensen or you can contact
me and I'll see he gets your contact info.
If such a formal survey is not your bag, there is also a somewhat less
locked in protocol for Frogwatch:
http://www.nwf.org/frogwatchUSA/
Both of these are nationwide surveys, though NAAMP has not gotten into
the western states yet. So you don't have to be in Georgia to
participate. Canada also has it's own version of the NAAMP survey.
During casual conversation some things about the Florida Ivory Bill work
came out. Several of the folks in the group had been there and some had
gotten recordings. So far no photographs, most sightings of the birds
have been of them flying by. And one recent chance at photographing a
perching bird was lost. They had the gear, modern cameras and
telephotos, but when the camera was pointed at the bird for the shot the
autofocus hunted instead of focusing. Before it could either settle or
they switch to manual focus, the bird left, they did get a good long
look, but no photo. I got the impression the person was not familiar
with doing manual focusing. I've found autofocus to be really talented
about messing up critical shots.
Walt
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