Volunteer Avian Field Assistant

Volunteer Avian Field Assistant for Fall Field Season
(August 1 – October 31, 2024)

One-week positions: for inexperienced banders
Two-three-week positions for those with some experience.
Location: Pelee Island, Ontario
Application deadline: August 30, 2024

Fieldwork Duties:
As a Volunteer Avian Field Assistant (VAFA), you will assist the Field Biologist and Assistant Field Biologist with mist netting and bird banding every morning. Depending on your previous experience, you will help conduct the daily census, and extract birds from nets and band them. You will also be required to perform other duties associated with PIBO’s migration-monitoring program.
As well, all volunteers will be responsible for helping with the daily chores at the PIBO staff house: cooking, cleaning, dish-washing and general clean-up, shopping, taking out compost, driving trash to the landfill, and so on.

Perks/Conditions:
Volunteers will be provided with free housing on the island. Cooking facilities are provided, but you’ll need to shop for your own groceries. Transportation to and from Pelee Island is also the responsibility of the volunteer. Volunteers should bring their own field gear, including binoculars, hiking boots, rubber boots, mosquito hats/shirts, and clothing for warm or cold, dry or wet, weather. This position starts as soon as possible. A driver’s license is helpful but not essential.
Please note that to do the kind of fieldwork we do on the island, you must be comfortable with snakes, spiders, and biting insects. You must be an early-riser and be able to work with others, and be mature and dependable. Work starts almost every day before dawn. Most afternoons will be free time, apart from data entry and station upkeep.

Qualifications/Requirements:
The Volunteer Avian Field Assistant will:

-Have some songbird banding and net extraction experience
-Be familiar with most birds of the Great Lakes region
-Be sociable and congenial since the VAFA is required to assist with welcoming visitors at the banding station
-Assist with the upkeep of the PIBO staff accommodation and field station, help with shopping, cleaning, etc.
-Assist with PIBO island education programs and events, such as banding demonstrations, etc

Please send cover letter and resume to Suzanne Friemann, Executive Director, Pelee Island Bird Observatory, at suzanne.friemann@pibo.ca