Bird lovers in northern and central Wisconsin are invited early next month to Stevens Point to help the DNR help finalize numbers for it's Breeding Bird Atlas.
The Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas is a comprehensive field survey that documents the distribution and abundance of birds breeding across our state. Volunteers are critical to finding birds and collecting data. So far, more than 1,700 Atlas volunteers have documented the location and behavior of 6.6 million birds of 242 species. This is the fifth and final year of data collection.
A DNR conservation biologist, Ryan Brady, says some species in southern Wisconsin have already started nesting, including Great Horned Owls and possibly eagles.
He says the meeting next month is a prime opportunity for bird lovers to help out...
"...We're going to need a few more volunteers, especially across parts of north central Wisconsin to help out. To help facilitate that, we're having a conference, a training event, coming up in early April in Stevens Point. We hope to get people in the doors to help us with the project and learn about this last year...."
Brady says volunteers go out in June and July and just observe and document what they see when bulk of breeding behavior is going on. There's an online website...ebird...which goes into a larger database. He says they especially need volunteers from this region as it's rich in birds but low in volunteers.
The meeting is April 5-7 at the Holiday Inn in Stevens Point. The keynote speaker is Ian Davies, eBird project coordinator with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
We have a linkhere for more information on the upcoming meeting.
