Michelle Tobin

Background

About Michelle Tobin

I am enthusiastic about working outdoors and like to share the beauty and wonder that I have for animals and plants with other people. I have about 10 years experience surveying birds both as a volunteer and as a paid employee for AMEC Earth and Environmental, the Great Basin Bird Observatory, and the Southern Sierra Research Station. For a little over 10 years, I have been participating in Christmas Bird Counts in southern California and I have also volunteered to help with surveys for Tricolored Blackbirds, Long-billed Curlews, Mountain Plovers, and Clark's and Western Grebes. Other volunteer work I have done includes hummingbird banding for the Hummingbird Monitoring Network, passerine banding in Riverside for a White-crowned Sparrow study, and co-leading beginning bird walks and co-teaching beginning bird classes for the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society. Outside of the U.S.A, I have also volunteered as a bird guide for 3 months at Rancho Naturalista in Costa Rica. Professionally, I have worked with AMEC Earth and Environmental assisting with Spotted Owl surveys, night-bird surveys (including owls, nightjars, and nighthawks), Burrowing Owl Surveys, and a MAPS banding project in Imperial Beach. I have also worked with the Great Basin Bird Observatory and the Southern Sierra Research Station finding nests, observing and recording bird's breeding behaviors, and mapping their territories using a GPS and an aerial photo. I have acquired some experience using ArcGIS, while mapping breeding territories for birds with the Great Basin Bird Observatory. With the Southern Sierra Research Station, I work for the study of Western Yellow-billed Cuckoos along the Lower Colorado River in the Blythe area and have done some telemetry work. I also have some experience doing vegetation surveys/assessments for the MAPS banding project and for the breeding bird surveys along the Lower Colorado River with the Great Basin Bird Observatory.