Marshbird Workshop Participants - FWS photo by Dave Ellis

Biologists from the Midwest, Mountain-Prairie, and Northeast Regions of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service converged on the marshes at Clarence Cannon National Wildlife Refuge, Missouri, April 16-19, for the Marshbird Monitoring Workshop. 

Instructors for the course included experts from the Biological Monitoring Team, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and Canada.  The refuge and the St. Louis University Lay Center offered a great setting for field training, meeting and lodging facilities. 

The workshop provided both practical training and an opportunity to review proposed changes to the protocol; the chance to discuss sampling/survey design needs based on station monitoring objectives; a review of the centralized web site database for entering field data; and discussion of other issues.  Upon completion of the workshop, participants felt more confident in their abilities to set up marshbird surveys and were eager complete them on their respective refuges. 

While conducted field training, participants were treated to the vocalizations of the American bittern, least bittern, sora rail, Virginia rail, pied-billed grebe, American coot, Wilson’s snipe and various other marsh inhabitants.  For those hardy souls who never get enough birding, additional field trips included the Delair Division of the Great River NWR and the Mid-Rivers WRP private lands site.