Audobon seeks County project volunteers

    As Maine’s peepers herald the start of spring, Maine Audubon is sending out a cry for volunteers across Aroostook County to listen for and note the sounds of frogs on several evenings through early summer in Dickey, Musquacook Lake, Oakfield/Stair Falls, St. John, Bootford, Chapman, Bridgewater and Patten.
    “After heavy snow cover and a cold spring delayed the season by about two weeks, wood frogs and spring peepers are finally starting to call along the coast of Maine as far north as Acadia National Park,” said Susan Gallo, Maine Audubon wildlife biologist. “When we get a night of warm rain, then frogs and salamanders will really start coming to life!”  
    Gallo coordinates the Maine Amphibian Monitoring Project, entering its 12th year of surveying Maine’s amphibian populations. 
    Ideally, volunteers have e-mail and Internet access and can commit three years to the project. After passing an online quiz on frog calls, they conduct surveys first in early spring to hear spring peepers and wood frogs, then in late spring to hear American toads and northern leopard and pickerel frogs, and finally in early summer for gray tree, green, mink and bullfrogs. Volunteers make 10 stops along their routes, waiting five minutes at each and noting the frog species they hear.
    Maine has nine species of amphibians, and usually only a few are heard at any one time, making identification relatively easy for beginners. Potential volunteers as well as the public are welcome to take the frog quiz, designed by the U.S. Geological Survey, at www.pwrc.usgs.gov/frogquiz. 
    The program also needs “citizen-science” volunteers in northern Maine (Caucomgomoc Lake, Moose Mountain, Penobscot Lake and Pittston Farm).
    Those interested in participating should contact Susan Gallo at 781-2330, ext. 216, or sgallo@maineaudubon.org.