Needs From: Community Builders of Monterey County

This beginning birding field trip involves a walk around the beautiful Laguna Grande with MPRPD staff to showcase the diversity of the birds at this lagoon. 

Bring the binocular bin for new birders to use. Each event is 2  hours and occurs on the 4th Saturday of the month.

This beginning birding field trip involves a walk around the beautiful Asilomar Conference Grounds to showcase the diversity of the terrain, from pine forest, pond with frogs, and sand dunes. 

Bring the binocular bin for new birders to use. This event occurs on the second Sunday of the month.

NOTE: At this time, Amanda Preece is the Field Trip leader. We are looking for one co-leader to learn from her.

Lead/co-lead this hike in Del Monte Forest. Starting on the Highway 68 section, take a hike through Del Monte Forest. This hike should be a cool getaway for you and the participants.

Coordinate obtaining/returning binoculars with Deb.

Share your adventurous spirit by showcasing our summer shorebirds by leading or co-leading this trip.

Spotting scopes and binoculars will be available for loan.  Coordinate obtaining/returning these items with Deb.

We have an opportunity to introduce families to birding at Marks Ranch. The setup would be to have a spotting scope pointed at a woodpecker colony near the flat road area near the entrance. You can have a few pairs of binoculars available, too. I should have a backpack for you with materials for easy sharing.

As they approach, you'll share the birds you're finding and how to identify them or their role in the local ecosystem. Since this is a beginning birding group, you can focus on the basics of birding: eyes, ears, shape, where to find them. Names are secondary.

Date: Sun 7/26

Time: 8 AM setup, event is 9AM - 1PM

Location: Marks Ranch, Salinas

Table at this popular event at the PG Natural History Museum. The theme is unique habitats, in which our local birds inhabit in great abundance.

Tabling includes

- Sharing your love of nature and birds with participants

- Engaging them in some of our bird-related activities

- Encouraging them to participate in MAS events

Shifts available.

We'll spend the day sharing our love of birds and how they are an important part of the ecosystem. Our efforts will dovetail nicely with the workshops, demonstrations, and opportunities for participants to explore and purchase California native plants.

We want to inspire people to bring native plants home to their gardens to support birds and wildlife.

Are you a storyteller at heart with a passion for community impact and the environment? We are looking for a creative Volunteer Blogger / Storyteller to help us highlight the incredible people who make our mission possible.

In this role, you will bring our community closer together by sharing the human side of our organization. You will write engaging blog posts and short stories featuring our dedicated volunteers and hard-working staff members. The fun stuff is:

- Conduct Interviews: Reach out to designated volunteers and staff to chat about their experiences, passions, and journeys with Monterey Audubon.

- Field Connections: Occasionally join volunteers in the field or at events to capture the essence of their work and gather firsthand inspiration.

- Craft Compelling Stories: Write 1–2 engaging blog posts or short stories per month (approximately 400–800 words each) that highlight personal impact, local wildlife connection, and community dedication.

- Articles: We have wonderful conservation projects that need to be more widely known. Conduct an in-depth review and interview process with our project team members to craft compelling stories we can share with news outlets and our members.

Birdability programs help make birding more inclusive and accessible for people of all abilities. By reducing barriers and sharing clear information about accessible birding locations, we ensure that more people can connect with nature, birds, and community.

We have many roles that you can undertake:

- Learning what features make up an actually accessible trail;

- Contributing birding locations to the Birdability Map (a crowd-sourced map of accessible birding locations, with details of the accessibility features of them)

- Hosting a Birdability Field Trip

- Giving presentations about birds to senior centers

Training will be provided.

Black Oystercatchers are excellent indicator species of the rocky shoreline habitat, and desgnated as a species of conservation concern. Black Oystercatchers nest on beaches and are very vulnerable to human encroachment, oil spills, and severe ocean conditions.

Since 2011, Monterey Audubon has been supporting and spearheading the California Central Coast BLOY Monitoring Project (BLOY MP) in the Monterey Bay region and beyond.

Volunteers are invited to join the monitoring team. To be part of the Black Oystercatcher Monitoring Program’s community science program, you are required to do the following:

1. Register as a Monterey Audubon volunteer at http://MontereyAudubon.org/volunteer.

2. Attend the lecture or view a monitoring training

3. Read the accompanying guide.

4. Complete the BLOY Volunteer Project Registration

5. Participate in the field training

Once you have completed all these steps, the Regional Coordinator will provide you with a mentor and assign the monitoring site, where you will check on the birds once per week for at least 30 minutes to document all behavior observed.

A commitment from May through September is required, with allowances for occasional missed monitoring assuming a suitable substitute monitor is available.

The Monterey Audubon Society is launching an exciting new initiative to protect and raise awareness for Heermann's Gulls nesting right here in Seaside. We want to share our crucial monitoring efforts with the community and highlight why protecting these beautiful seabirds is so important. If you love wildlife and enjoy chatting with the public, this is the perfect project for you!

Public Outreach: Engage with community members and visitors to share information about the Heermann's Gulls and our local conservation efforts.

Fledgling Monitoring: Help keep an eye out for grounded fledglings to ensure their safety during this critical nesting season.

Timeline: Dates are currently TBD, but shifts will roughly run from late June to mid-July.

Minimum 1-hour commitment per week.

You will work in pairs, so this is a great way to meet new people.

Are you a data whisperer, a metadata maven, or a database enthusiast? The Monterey Audubon Society needs your skills! Over the years, we have gathered a wealth of incredible environmental and community data. Now, we face an exciting challenge: we have lots of data, and we need to organize it! If you love turning unstructured information into beautifully organized, accessible digital libraries, we would love to have you join our team.

As a Digital Library volunteer, you can choose to collaborate on a variety of impactful projects, including:

- Photo Archive & Retrieval: Help us categorize, tag, and organize years of stunning wildlife and community photography so our team can easily find and use them

- Newsletter Retrieval System: Catalog and index our historic newsletters to make decades of local conservation history searchable.

- Database Management: Structure and clean up over 10 years of historical project data to help us track long-term environmental trends.

- ArcGIS StoryMaps: Combine geography and data to build visually stunning, interactive stories that show the real-world impact of our conservation work.

-Data-Driven Storytelling: Use our organized data to write compelling summaries and articles about our past and present projects.

Monterey Audubon works with the general community to share our love of birds and nature through our programs and conservation efforts. You don’t have to be a top-tier birder - we need folks from all backgrounds and with various skill sets to help protect the birds and wildlife that so many people love.

We are seeking outgoing people to help us welcome visitors to our programs at tabling events at farmer's markets and street fairs, festivals, and other community events throughout the year. It’s a great way to learn and share with the public what we do and why we care. It is a small time commitment - usually a few hours on a weekend - but a big help.

Monterey County is full of various habitats that host hundreds of species of birds throughout the year. Given that our field trips fill up in the blink of an eye, the public is itching to be out there, and we need help leading these events! If interested, please contact us. Training and mentoring is provided.