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Volunteers
Needed to Help Monitor the Owen Sowerwine Natural Area
Flathead Audubon is now in its 12th year of managing the Owen
Sowerwine Natural Area. An important component of that
management is to monitor the Area in order to know better what
birds and other wildlife are frequenting the Area, find out when
walkways or fences need fixing, look for any signs that Natural
Area rules are being violated, watch for parking problems or
trail blockages, and generally keep track of what is happening
there.
We are looking for volunteers to help with this. All you need to
do is tromp around Owen Sowerwine and tell us what you see!
Here are two different ways you can do this.
(1) Sign up for the Volunteer Monitoring Program.
The purpose of the Volunteer Monitoring Program is to ensure
that at least one monitoring visit to the Owen Sowerwine Natural
Area on behalf of Flathead Audubon is made roughly every 2 weeks
for the months of March through November.
Last year was the first year of the Program. Volunteer Monitors
were drawn primarily from the Flathead Audubon Board. This gave
us a chance to do a year-long trial run – and it worked quite
well! We found that the Program gives us the regular feedback we
need in order to keep up on maintenance chores, identify
problems (such as weeds) that we need to address, get an idea of
visitor numbers and visitor activities, and develop a more
complete list of the plants, birds, and wildlife using the Area.
This year, we are opening the Monitoring Program to anyone who
is interested in helping out. Members of Flathead Audubon are
encouraged to participate. It provides a great opportunity to
explore the Owen Sowerwine Natural Area and get to know it
better. At the same time you are making a significant
contribution to Flathead Audubon‘s ongoing management of the
Area.
The Program works like this:
Each volunteer (or several volunteers, if you want to work
together) signs up to cover a monitoring period. Each monitoring
period is half a month long (March through November). Volunteer
Monitors are expected to make at least one monitoring visit
during their chosen period, including one weekend visit if
possible.
Monitors are provided with a Monitoring Check-list indicating
what should be covered on a monitoring visit and a map showing
the areas and trails referenced on the Check-list. They are
encouraged to use a camera to document their observations. At
the end of the monitoring period, a completed Check-list for
each visit along and any documenting images are sent to Brent
Mitchell, Owen Sowerwine Committee Co-Chair, by either email or
US mail.
Volunteer Monitors are also encouraged to talk with visitors to
Owen Sowerwine to find out how the Natural Area is being used,
and provide feedback on the concerns, comments and suggestions
of Owen Sowerwine’s visitors and neighbors. There is room on the
Monitoring Check-list to report these findings.
A monitoring visit can be expected to take from 1˝ hours to 2
hours, but you can spend longer if you wish.
To volunteer, or to get more information, please contact Linda
Winnie at
lindawin@centurytel.net or 755-1406, or talk to her at the
Flathead Audubon meeting, where she will have the sign-up sheet.
You can take a look at the
Monitoring
Check-list in this section of the FAS website.
(2) Give us feedback whenever you visit Owen Sowerwine.
Whenever you go to Owen Sowerwine – whether for just a short
time to walk on the trails, or for a few hours of birding, take
one of our Monitoring Check-lists with you. You can use the
Check-list to indicate what parts of Owen Sowerwine you visited,
and what you saw there.
You can get a copy of the check-list by copying it from this
section of the FAS website, or contact Linda Winnie at
lindawin@centurytel.net
or 755-1406. Copies of the check-list are also
available at the Flathead Audubon meetings.
We encourage all Flathead Audubon members to become eyes and
ears for the Chapter when they visit Owen Sowerwine. Note that
you can also use the check-list to report the birds you see, or
any new plants or areas of weed infestation. If you find a
species as yet unreported for Owen Sowerwine, and tell us about
it on your check-list, we’ll see that it gets added to the Owen
Sowerwine Bird List or Plant List.
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