CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS!

The Great Marsh Institute (GMI) is seeking volunteers to assist with vetting results for our ongoing Marsh Sound Monitoring project.

From March through the end of May we deploy Autonomous Recording Units (ARU’s) in various areas of the marsh to detect and catalogue marsh related species. 2025 will be the sixth year of this long-term project. We are going to be almost doubling the recording points this year thanks to the generosity of various individuals and organizations and in doing so, reached the point where it is impractical for a single individual to handle the workload.

We are seeking 3-4 patient, detail-oriented individuals to assist with this project. The work can be done from home and at one’s own pace. Training and support will be provided.

Work will consist of reviewing initial AI generated results which are in Excel CSV format by visually and audibly analyzing spectrograms of the associated recordings. Individual vocalizations will be entered into an Excel spreadsheet which will be added to a master spreadsheet. We have documented over 35K vocalizations to date! Data will be used to track long-term trends in species presence and distribution within the Great Marsh.

Prerequisites

• Keen interest in birds and bird vocalizations
• Personal Laptop or Desktop
• Access to Microsoft Excel
• Ability to visually and audibly analyze spectrograms (training and support will be provided)
• The desire to be a part of an important long-term scientific project

Interested parties should reach out to Mike Coulter at mike@greatmarshinstitute.org with days/times of availability for a phone conversation.