Third and Final Marsh Bird Survey

On Friday night three of us went out for the final marsh bird survey.  At our first stop a half hour before sunset (8:30) we listened for marsh birds but heard geese, chickens, red winged blackbirds, common yellow throats, and cowbirds.  Because marsh birds are so secretive, as a part of this study we play the sounds that they make for 30 seconds.  We play 30 seconds of the calls of the least bittern, American bittern, sora rail, yellow rail, Virginia rail and pied billed grebe.  We didn't hear any at the first or second or third stops.  At the third stop a sora rail (see picture) answered with a whinny just once.  We didn't hear any rails at the fourth stop but the fire flies were putting on quite a beautiful light show.  The mosquitoes were feasting on us despite my long pants, long sleeves and I was wearing a mosquito net headpiece.  The night was hot and humid so I didn't want to wear jeans.  By the way, mosquitoes can bite right through yoga pants.  As we watched the marsh we could see the mist forming. At the fifth stop we had technical difficulties.  Unlike the frog and toad survey and the owl survey where we rely on our ears and pen and paper, we need technology to play the sound of these marsh birds at 90 decibels.  What could we do?  Try as I might sound like a sora rail, a real sora rail can tell the difference between one of it's own kind and a poor imitator such as I am.  A partial survey is better than none.  We can't come back later and pick up where we left off.  We'd have to do the entire survey again.  Our next opportunity to do that was early Sunday morning.  If we couldn't do it then, we couldn't do it at all.  We would have to start at 4:55 a.m.  I set out my clothes and set my alarm for 4 o'clock.  I worry about not getting up and don't sleep well.  A storm wakes me up about 3.  Thunder and lightening appear but not much rain is falling.  The storm decides our fate for us. We can't redo the third survey this morning so we will have to turn in our partial run.  We tried though.  We really tried.  We were up at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning and that alone shows real effort.  Looking back, I am glad I did this survey. It was a challenge of my learning skills, my listening skills, my map skills, my Garmin skills and my navigation skills.  I learned the sounds of eight new birds and my yearly goal is two or three.  I learned more about my local community and I met more fascinating and talented people.  I had some adventures.  I spent more time outside.  I lost some sleep.  I got a couple ticks and many mosquito bites.  Now our survey is complete.  I still have to enter the data into the Point Blue Conservation Science system which won't be hard to do.  The cool thing is this system is made for and used by real scientists.  I fell like it is an honor to be given a chance to log in and use it.  Some day I really want to hear a yellow rail.  A road trip may be in my future.