I was reading through the June 2008 issue of Harrowsmith Country Life magazine from the library last night when I happened on an article about on the Canadian FrogWatch program (page 12). Since the sound of the frogs around our house, especially with the slough across the road, has been deafening some days (at times it sounds as if the Martians are landing, with very squeaky, very noisy helicopters), it sounds like a good project for us, especially for the kids. And something else to watch, and listen, to, along with our painted lady butterflies (Hornblower is watching them, too).
According to the NatureWatch website, becoming a Frogwatch volunteer observer in Alberta at least is
very easy. All you need to do is learn the frog and toad calls, choose a location to listen for calls, record your observations, and send your observations to us via our website, telephone, fax, or by mail. Your information will be entered into a database and you will be able to view a map showing your observation location and the location of other Frogwatch volunteers in Alberta.
There’s information available for the other provinces as well. In Alberta, we have until the end of June for monitoring, so guess what we’ll be doing next month. After we take the nifty frog and toad identification tutorial, of course, and register.
I think we’re also going to sign up for the PlantWatch program, and possibly even the National Worm Survey.
Filed under: Canadiana, Country Life, Fun & Games, Natural History, Spring
First I would like to say Hi, I’m a new reader – and enjoy your posts.
We participated in something similar here in the U.S. Our state has a frog monitoring program and for a short time I volunteered; however, my route was quite far from our home and it turned out to be quite costly both in time and money, so we had to let someone else take it over. My children and I learned so much in the short time that we participated though. I hope you enjoy your experience with this!
Welcome, Stephanie, and thank you.
I don’t think I’d have considered the program if it meant driving to the frogs, or spending any money. We can walk out the front door and hear them all around. Last summer the kids were even running a sort of frog farm (!), which I wrote about here,
http://farmschool.wordpress.com/2007/07/12/in-the-garden-and-around-the-farm/
Fantastic! Finding tadpoles still excites me, same as when I was a child.
I’m going to forward the Frogwatch link to the coordinator of our state’s amphibian monitoring program. It makes much more sense than all the driving around theirs currently entails. Glad you posted it.