Pacific Southwest Research Station

Pacific Southwest Research Station
800 Buchanan Street
West Annex Building
Albany, CA 94710-0011

(510) 559-6300

Research Topics

Wildlife & Fish: Bird Monitoring

Bird Monitoring Internships in Tortuguero, Costa Rica:

Positions are available for volunteer bird banding interns at our bird monitoring station in Tortuguero throughout the year. Participants are expected to have experience in identifying birds, and they usually have removed from mist nets and processed at least 200 landbirds. The minimum length of stay is usually one month. All volunteers receive their room and board while they are staying at the station of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, Estacion Biologica, in the lovely coastal Caribbean town of Tortuguero. We and our collaborators in Costa Rica have been operating five monitoring stations near the village for six years. A recent volunteer wrote of his experences at the station in "Wonderful world, beautiful people and fantastic birds: A season of bird monitoring in Costa Rica."

We operate mist nets for resident and migrant species and conduct migration censuses of the millions of diurnal migrants moving along the coast. Some of the species a participant might encounter are listed in the "Checklist to the birds of Tortuguero." Volunteers are responsible for their own travel to and from Costa Rica. Primary Banders, those who have extensive experience operating a capture and monitoring station, can be awarded up to half their airfare.

Please send an indication of your interest, number of birds extracted and processed from mist nets, level of experience in bird identification, dates of availability, and names and phone numbers of references. If you have any questions, send them to C. John Ralph (email: cjr2@humboldt.edu or cralph@fs.fed.us; Phone: 707-825-2992; fax: 707-825-2901), U.S. Forest Service, Redwood Sciences Laboratory, 1700 Bayview Drive, Arcata, California 95521.

Photos courtesy of Tortuguero Integrated Bird Monitoring Program / Anna Thaler.

Research is being conducted by:

• Maintaining Faunal Diversity in Forested Ecosystems of the Coastal and Intermountain West (RWU-4251)