Dear Maine Audubon, I'm interested in volunteer opportunities. How can I help?

July 22, 2009

Topics: Scarborough Marsh | Birding

In addition to our ongoing citizen-science opportunities to help Maine Audubon monitor Maine’s populations of loons, owls, and amphibians, now you can participate in TogetherGreen Volunteer Days, a nationwide effort Audubon launched last fall, with funding from Toyota.

To date, more than 9,000 volunteers have donated over 43,000 hours of time to environmental projects connecting people with ways to make a conservation difference in their local communities. By building stronger alliances with other local organizations, schools, and businesses, Audubon hopes to attract new and diverse volunteers—like you, we hope!

At Scarborough Marsh Audubon Center, Maine Audubon will organize TogetherGreen Volunteer Days that include marsh clean-up days; data collection for a database that tracks Phragmities australis, an invasive reed in Maine; and two marsh-wide bird surveys that may be done on foot, by car, or from a canoe or kayak.

The amazing abundance and diversity of birds at Scarborough Marsh has made it one of Maine’s first Important Bird Areas, part of a global effort to identify and conserve areas vital to bird populations.

• Dates for bird surveys are Saturday, July 25 and Saturday, August 22, 7 a.m.-noon.
• Phragmites monitoring days are Sunday, August 2 from 1-4 p.m. (training) and Saturday, August 15 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (survey); for those who cannot attend, some alternative dates are possible. 
• Marsh clean-up dates are Saturday, October 10 and Saturday, April 24, 9 a.m.-noon.