 Many of you have been on some other webinars to know a bit about this project, but the monitoring that we're going to be talking about today is all about, is all part of the Mainland Restoration Project. So this is a part of a five-year collaboration that's led by Maine Audubon with the partners I've mentioned already, Main Lakes Lakes Environmental Association and the Penobscot Nation. We are doing this in close coordination with Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and all of our funding comes from an oil spill settlement that's being handled through the US Fish and Wildlife Service trustees. So just to put the monitoring that we're going to be talking about today into context, this is all overall to see how some of our efforts to increase nesting and breeding success and to decrease mortality in loons is working. And there are four primary ways that we're trying to address issues with nesting and mortality in loons. And one is placing these loon nesting rafts, and those are to help increase loon nesting success, especially for pairs that are struggling to hatch chicks. Monitoring, as I mentioned, is to try to track success of loons in their breeding and also if they're surviving. And outreach and nest protection is to try to both increase nesting success and reduce mortality through outreach and reducing mortality by trying to reduce the amount of lead tackle that we're using on Main Lakes and Ponds. So now to focus in on just the part that's highlighted in green on the monitoring, we have a look, we're focusing this on just all the components of, you know, why monitor, what to monitor and what information to gather, when and how often, what time of year. And then we're going to go into detail about how to conduct loon pair surveys and also observe loons responsibly in a way that we don't create disturbance. So yeah, and then we'll go in the type of detail we'll go into is, you know, when to survey and with the survey methods and some of the resources that are available to you along the way. Oh, I guess I haven't been saying, Ethan, to switch because you've been taking my cues. Thank you. So one of the biggest contributions that you can make to this project is by monitoring the success of a raft, a sign or a breeding pair. We really need your help to track nesting success. Are the rafts and nesting signs helping to hatch more chicks? Are they using the raft or the signs helping? And also to catch raft and sign issues. So sometimes anchor lines might be too short if you have a particularly high flooding year. The raft can be too close to shore potentially where predators can get to it, has the vegetation washed off. So those are two really important things for us to track. And then tracking threats. A big part of this is looking at what is affecting the nesting success and survival of loons on these lakes. So and the threats can change over time. So we might have put out a raft for one reason. Now, perhaps that threat has evolved or been solved. And there might be something else affecting net thing success. So the only way we can know how this program works is through efforts of participants like you. So we really thank you for helping us out with this. And so the what we're tracking, we're really focusing in on one loon pair and their family. And we're trying to gather the information to tell this breeding pair's story. So the main thing, I guess what I'd like to say, yeah. So the survey form will walk you through exactly what we're looking for in terms of monitoring. But we're primarily focusing on pairs that have struggled to hatch chicks or that need some protection from signs to reduce disturbance. So that's our primary focus. But we're also fine if you want to monitor some of the other pairs on lakes where we have rafts and signs so that we can learn more about the full picture of a lake. And then we're also doing some monitoring on lakes where we're considering putting out signs and rafts. That gives us some of the background history before we start doing those types of restoration efforts. So in a nutshell, what we're tracking is raft use. So are they using rafts if we have a raft out there? The number of chicks that are hatched and whether or not they used a raft. Did the chicks survive to at least six weeks of age, which is a time when we figure that's when they're likely to be able to fledge and survive and fly off the lake. And then looking at the number of times they try to nest. And if we can track disturbance and incidence of threats. That is the what. And so yeah, so really what has the monitoring shown us so far and how well we've been doing. So I just wanted to give you a little report on what we found out so far through monitoring efforts. So last year, we did put out 30 new rafts and relaunch 27 that we'd put out in prior years of the project. And from from the rafts themselves, some pairs that chose to use the rafts, we hatched 17 chicks and just note that these are from pairs that sometimes hadn't hatched chicks in years. So most of them have failed for at least three years, sometimes up to 10 or even more years have been failing. And now they with these rafts, they hatched 10 chicks. I mean, 17 chicks and 10 survived to the at least six weeks of age. And most of those fledged off the lake. So yeah, so the rafts have been working really well. In comparison with the pairs that chose to use naturalness and didn't use the rafts, it was it was several times better hatching success than than on than what we saw on what we saw in the rafts versus what we saw from the naturalness. So yeah, they really have been helping. So the efforts are working. We have less information still about how well the signs are helping to reduce disturbance. So that's what we're really hoping to ramp that up this year and get people monitoring some of the signs. So yeah, so the other question we get a lot is about how this is different than the loon count. So you are still monitoring loons, but what's different about this? So I think at least, yeah, I recognize several of you are involved in the loon count, which happens every year, third Saturday of July. And it's a snap, a half hour snapshot of the population. And it is primarily a count, which allows us to estimate the mains population during the breeding season. And it helps us attract long term trends in the population. This is different in that it focuses on nesting success, rather than numbers of loons and chicks. It focuses in on the entire breeding season versus just one snapshot census. And it focuses in on a single pair. Yeah. And so it also helps us to find out which loons might need our help and how well all of our rafts and signs are working. So it just serves not a less or more important purpose than the loon count, but a very different one. So this grant has really been an opportunity for us to track individual, the success of individual pairs, which we've never really been able to do before. So it's an exciting project that we've been engaged in for the last four years. So we are finishing this project next year. So we'll go all through 2025. And then we're hoping to get everyone confident enough to be able to continue on their own if we aren't able to secure additional funding for the project. Oh, great. Okay. So now I will go ahead and that's just like a brief overview of what this is about, why we're doing monitoring, and some of the types of information that we're tracking. And now I'm handing it over to Oscar who will be able to give you a lot more information about how you go about doing this. So thank you. Thank you, Tracy. Yeah, yeah, time to get into the how of how do you actually go out on the water and do these monitoring surveys. A great place to start is that we have a whole list of monitoring instructions up on our website. So that's going to be a gear checklist of what to bring, when to survey and how to do it responsibly, how to actually do it, how to determine chick ages, when to tell if two loons are a mated pair, read loon behaviors, all sorts of great information. It's going to be a repeat of a lot of the information in this webinar today, but I really suggest that you familiarize yourself with that even after watching this before you go out just so you know you have everything down pat. Next slide. First off, we can go over kind of a gear checklist of what should have with you before you go out on the water. Almost all of these surveys you're going to need to get out on the water. You can't really complete them from shore. So you will need some kind of personal water craft, likely something non-motorized like a new or kayak. You're going to need a PFD or a life jacket. A clipboard would be nice so you can jot down some notes. A pair of binoculars is super essential so you can monitor the loons from a distance instead of having to get over top of them. You're going to want a pencil and a survey form. We'll get into how to get those later. And then a loon monitoring reference sheet, which will have some really quick information to help answer any questions you have while out on the water. A good camera with a nice like long telephoto lens is going to be a great asset because you're able to get really snapshot information from a distance that even if you don't understand in the moment, you can pass off to us and help work through it. And then a cell phone with Google Maps to help mark GPS points can be great. Not essential but can be a little bit nicer than kind of guesstimating on a paper map. Next slide. Yeah. And next couple of slides I'm going to go over just how to survey responsibly. It's really important to use caution, especially during the braiding season, because humans can have a really outsized negative impact on nesting success if you get too close to them and you don't observe their boundaries. So knowing how to survey responsibly and knowing what to look for in loons is super important. Next slide. So what that looks like on the nest, we have two picture examples here. On the left we have a relaxed loon pair. They have their head up, they're looking around. They are acting pretty normally. And on the right we have an example of a stressed loon. This loon will have its head down. It'll be ready to dart off into the water at a moment's notice. If you see this back away, you are much too close. The loon can flee the nest at that point and then that leaves eggs super susceptible to predation, which is not a good thing. All right, next slide. All right. And on the water, pretty similar in a relaxed position. The loon will have its head up just swimming around. And on the right we have some examples of some stressed behaviors. So in the upper right we have a loon that's riding low, kind of similar to that posture on the nest. That's going to be a stressed out loon. And then this picture of an upright loon that's doing something called a penguin dance. Those two pictures on the right are both territorial behaviors that you might see a loon do if there's another loon invader on its nest. But in this case, a human being would be the invader. Next slide. And then kind of the in-between between that relaxed state and that stress state is concerned. Loons will do something called squaring off their forehead. So that's where they kind of pop all the feathers on their forehead to give it a more like right angle look. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to turn around and back away, but it's a really good time to start really looking at the loon and paying attention to its behavior. I wouldn't get any closer at this point. Just keep an eye on it. And if it starts doing more of those stressed behaviors, that would be a good time to turn around and give it a little bit more distance. Great. So into the surveys themselves and what your survey area is going to look like, on a small pond here with only one territorial breeding pair, your survey area is going to be the entire pond if it's just the one territory. If you happen to be on a larger lake that can host multiple loon pairs, then you're going to want to kind of narrow down your survey area to just the territory of one pair. In these surveys, we really only want the information for a single pair. And that's going to start by kind of finding the areas where you see that pair hanging out most often. And then you kind of want to expand it to where the furthest reaches where you see them go are. So you can get a better idea of what the limits and borders of their territories are. And if you're on a single lake or a single territory lake, kind of survey method would just be to do a loop around the perimeter of the lake. So you can get in on all the shorelines. If there are any islands on the lake, you want to ring around those two. So you can get a look at all of the shore and any potential nesting spots. If and when you do locate a pair while doing this, you're going to want to watch them with your binoculars from a good distance, long enough that you can make sure that you're not harassing them or disturbing them in any way. And you want to make sure that they're actually a territorial pair and not say competing loons that are fighting for nesting habitat. It's important to look for behavioral clues at this point. And we can get into a little bit more of what those behaviors are later on. And next, we're going to get into kind of breaking it down by time. At this point in the season, lakes are just beginning to melt out. And this kind of period will extend until mid-May. At this point, there isn't going to be any chicks on the water or really any active nesting. This is going to be when loons first show up and try to establish their territory and court one another and form breeding pairs. It's still a really good time to get out on the water, because you can get a better idea if loons from previous years are returning. You can see them test outsides for nest building. But this is kind of a preliminary stage in the monitoring. All right, next slide. The next period is going to be mid-May through about mid-June. This is really the nesting and incubation period. This is, yeah, when most pairs begin laying eggs. So it's a good idea to try and get a view of the nest. I will say loons are very, very sensitive to disturbance at this point. This is when they could theoretically abandon nests and eggs. So it's extra important to keep your distance and make sure you're not getting close. If you can see from a safe distance, if nests have eggs, that's super good information to have. But we'd rather you kind of keep your distance and leave the nest alone than get right up on top of it to get an accurate count of whether or not there's eggs. It might be a little bit tougher to search at this point to find a loon because they might be tucked away in a little cove on the shoreline. But yeah, important time to get out there. Next slide. And then the final period is going to be mid-June through August. So at this point, the loon chicks will have hatched and they're going to be out on the water. They leave the nest right away, so they'll start foraging. This is a really great time to track chick development if you know that there are chicks out on the water. And if you don't see any chicks, don't lose hope. It's still good to monitor any territorial pairs that are there because if they've abandoned a nest, there's a good chance that they can nest again. And if they do, you want to make sure you know where and kind of when that's happening. Yeah, most of the eggs hatch from about mid-June to late July. And if you do see chicks at that point, we really want to monitor them for at least six weeks. So through August or later, that's kind of the generally accepted cutoff for when we think that chicks will survive and fly off on their own at that point. You definitely can keep monitoring and we'd love that, but six weeks is a good amount of time to make sure you're doing all right. And we can get into how to actually track chick age in just a little bit. All right, next slide. So now that you know kind of how to get out on the water, we've got a couple of very useful forms and resources. Maybe the most important one is your late-specific survey form. So these are going to be located on our website under the Lunar Restoration Project in the Monitoring Resources tab. If you don't see your lake there, email us, let us know. We can make one up for you and send it off to you. We did make some changes to the form this year. So if you printed off a couple from last year, we really do recommend that you revisit the website and print off some new ones just so we can get all the information. If we're doing a site visit at any point too, we can also bring you some copies just to make your life a little bit easier. And even if you are generally using the Survey123 app to record your data, it's still really nice to have this paper copy because you can get some information from the paper copy that Survey123 just doesn't handle quite as well. All right, next slide. And then the last resource I'm going to tell you about are these laminated monitoring reference sheets. I consider these kind of like a quick guide to determining chick age and behavior while you're out on the water. So if you have any questions of what it is exactly that you're looking at, this is a nice thing to look down at while you're in the kayak just so you have a better idea of, am I too close to this loon? How old do I think this chick is? They're a really good quick reference guide, and that's also going to be located at that link in the chat. That's just under the Monitoring Resources tab of our Loon Restoration Project site. All right, that's me. I can then pass it off to Autumn. Thank you. Yeah, so when you have your sheet, then you will want to fill it out. So at the top, you'll want to put your name. So Tracy, and then how many observers? So it's just yourself, just put one observer. Then you put the pair name. So we would like it if you could name your pair something that you would keep for as long as that pair is there and using that nest in that area. So for example, here it's an island cove pair and then your phone number and your email address. And then on the form, there should be a smaller map of kind of the full lake area and then kind of a zoomed in area of just the breeding area of that one pair. So make sure you select the map that's right for your breeding pair. And then in the top right corner, that box there, you will use that map to record locations of specific things. Yeah, so we can go to the next slide. So something that we would want to record is if you see a chick until you record it with a sea in the area. And so there are, and then you also would want to record what stage that chick is in. So we can go to next slide to see the different stages. So the first stage is Downey Young. That's the youngest stage. And those are from zero to four weeks old. And in the stage, they're all fluffy and cute. They're pretty small. They have little bills. And this is when you'll see them writing on the backs of their parents. The second stage is small. So that is when they're kind of like in between. They still have some of their chick fuzz on them. And they are growing their feathers in, so they're a little shaggy looking. But in this stage, they're very unique from this Downey stage because they have those big bills they're starting to grow into and some feathers. And that stage, they're from four to about eight weeks. There can be some variation in that stage. And then the last stage is large. And that's kind of when they are semi-full grown. They have all their adult plumage. They are maybe a little bit smaller than an adult. And they tend to be their plumage is like a little gray compared to their parents. And this stage, they are about eight weeks old. So we can go to the next slide. Yeah. So pretty much if you see a chick, so for example, this chick here, you would mark on the map with a C where you saw it. And then this chick is small. And because of the variation in the age of when they are small, so when they have a little bit of fuzz on them and feathers, it's kind of hard to tell if they are six weeks or more. So this one, we wouldn't mark below if it was six weeks or more. But if it was a Downey chick, we would be able to say, no, it's not six weeks or more. And then if it was a large, we would definitely know that it was older than six weeks or more. So we'd say yes. Yeah. Okay. Next slide. So mapping your observations. So when you are on the lake, it's also important to map out potential pairs. And in large numbers, it's also important to map out moment here. I'll describe what it looks like to see a pair. But pretty much, we see two loons together. They're two adults. You think they are a territorial pair. And that means that they, that is like they're tolerating one another. So you're like, okay, I think maybe these are a pair. So you put two Ts. But maybe you're not sure. There's one that's kind of far away from the other and you're not really sure if they're a pair. So you could put a question mark by that individual. So you can see on the map there, there's a little question mark. Yeah. Okay. We can go to the next slide. So some behaviors that we can tell. So pretty much a territorial pair is like a pair of loons that are breeding and have a nest together. And some ways to tell is that if they are doing kind of synchronized swimming together. So when you observe them, they'll dip their bills together or they'll dive and synchronize at the same time. Or they'll like raise and lower their heads together. Those are kind of signs of those like courtship behaviors. And then another sign is that if they're just chilling with one another, if they're tolerating each other, if you just see a pair of two loons hanging out near each other, they seem really calm like in this picture. Or they don't have to be next to each other. Maybe they're both feeding in the same area and they seem calm. They aren't showing any of those aggressive behaviors that Oscar showed. Then you can probably assume that they are a territorial pair. Okay. We'll go to the next one. So then when you are out there, so this bottom box here, make sure you check the behaviors that you observe. So you can maybe if you saw a pair and they were pretty calm and they maybe were doing some diving, synchronized diving together, you could check that off in this thing here. And then maybe if you saw another loon come into the scenario and suddenly the pair changes their behavior and they start acting a little stressed and they have their heads up in alert position or maybe they start doing some penguin dances, then you can also check those boxes. Yeah. So we can go to the next slide. So for example, for that scenario, so you have the two Ts on your map that are marking where the territorial loon, the pair is. And then L is where you have another loon that kind of comes onto the scene. And these loons tend to cause some problems because they're trying to, they want to be one of those pair and they might cause some conflict. So you can write an L for that loon. And then in these scenarios, the territorial pair, if they have chicks, they'll take the chicks and maybe stash them somewhere. So you might find a lone chick that you could probably also note in your observations. But it's always best to leave that chick alone because that's their little safety area while the two territorial pair, like the parents go and probably try and defend their territory from this other loon here. Yeah, okay, next slide. And yeah, I think I'm gonna start here. Yeah, so another thing we observe on these sheets is the nesting sites of the loons. And so you'll see on the slide in front of you a bunch of different letters. And these are ways of indicating where the nest is and whether it's being used. And so N, if you write an N on the nest, you're writing that you're observing an active natural nest site. So a natural nest site that isn't on a raft. R indicates an active raft being used for nesting. So if you put an R next to a T, we'll know that the raft is being used by that loon. And if you put a U next to the R, we'll know that it's an unused raft. So sometimes loons do nest naturally or they don't nest period. And the raft goes unused, that does happen. And if that's the case, put a U next to the R. And then one other thing that helps us just with the history of these nests is if you put an F down, if you know of a former nesting site. So if you know of a former nesting site, just put an F down where it used to be. And one other thing I'll say on this slide is if you see that one loon is missing during this period of observation, don't worry about it because odds are that the loon is in a nest that you isn't visible to you. Sometimes they're quite secluded. And that means probably that one half of the pair is on the nest and the other loon is circling around. A lot of volunteers will call us panicking saying that one of the territorial pair is missing. I wouldn't worry about it. They're likely on the nest somewhere. And you just can't find the nest yet. So yeah. And in terms of knowing whether the loon is using there after not, it's hard to tell off of just one survey. Obviously there are some obvious signs if the loon is sitting on it or if there are eggs there. But our main advice here is that multiple surveys help for telling whether the loon is actually using there after not. If there's no loon on the ref, look for eggs with binoculars. If you don't see eggs, call it an unused raft for that survey. But don't give up on it yet. Keep watching and be willing to write down that it's an active raft in future surveys if you see signs of use or nesting later. So yeah, just report what you see based on that certain observation day. And in terms of recording nesting activity, we basically want to check boxes on these specific things. So are they building a nest or exploring nest sites? That's a great thing to know. If they are, check it. We'd love to see that. If they're, you can check if they're sitting on the nest or if there's an egg in nest with adult nearby. That's great to know. Number of eggs, don't get too close to the nest to count, but if you can see that from a distance with your binoculars, like Oscar told you to bring, then let us know. Incubating egg more than 30 days, this just wants, this is just us wanting to know if they're still within their normal incubation period. So if you know that and you know that it's more than 30 days, please check that box. You could check whether chicks have hatched, whether eggs are missing in the water or off the nest, whether there are pieces of eggshells in the nest or a broken egg, whether the adult loon left the nest and has abandoned it or whether the loons are nesting in a different location than the last survey. All of this information we'd love to know if you know. So yeah. And in terms of looking for the nest, we don't want people looking too close. Again, never get too close to the nest because that can just mess things up for the loons. But once you've established that territorial pair is present, you can begin looking for a nest. And loons tend to like nesting on islands, floating mats in coves, marsh areas, and in very gradual shorelines. And one thing that ties all of these together is that they're pretty quiet areas. They have a lot of mud and vegetation, which is good for building a nest. Some of these areas have, most likely have deep shorelines without a lot of boulders. So it's an easy entry, easy secluded entry for loons into their nest. A lot of these areas will have vegetation overhead, not too much overhead, but overhead to protect from heat and avian predators. So eagles, I'm sure, plenty of you know about that. And also areas with less development or human intrusion. So yeah, those are just the types of places that loons like to nest. They're also the types of places that humans don't always explore. So you got to get creative going along the shorelines. But again, don't get too close. Yeah, and so on the back of the form, based on popular demand from last year, we've added a lot more room for comments. Right down at the bottom, there are plenty of room for comments. And I'm going to get into what we want to see in those comments in a second. But first off, we just wanted to say those questions on the back are very important. Please answer the following. And one new question we've had this year is how many hours you've spent on the project? Part of what helps us do so well with this grant and this project is knowing that there's tangible evidence of volunteers being very involved in it. And I know you all are very involved in it and you want to brag about it. So please, if you have the opportunity, please list how many hours you spent on the project. And those hours could be attending this webinar. They could be sending us an email. They could be surveying. So please let us know how many hours you spent on the project. Write what date an adult was first seen on the nest. You can write the total number of chicks hatched by the pair so far this season. That's a crucial detail that we really need to see if any have been hatched. And what date was the first chick hatched on and did the chick survive? Disappear or die since your last survey? Those are great questions to have there. And then we'll move into comments. And but first I'll just say with these forms, please send the completed forms and photos to our main to main Audubon at 20 Gislin Farm Road. We're going to put that address in the chat and you can either send them to us via mail or you can email them to us at loonrestorationatmayinaudubon.org. But we really like to see either the exact hard copy of these forms or a digital picture or scan of these forms because there's so much great information on here and you all are so great at surveying. We really want to see these. And in addition to that, Oscar mentioned Survey123, we just want help by submitting your data online at this survey, which we will talk about in a moment as well. But just to go back to the comments, we really want to see a bunch of different stuff in the comments. We love reading the stories of these loon pairs. So if you could send to us your assessment of whether the nesting was a success or failure, that would be great. And in this section, please leave off how many chicks were had. We want to see that hard data in the questions where it was asked. You can write how many chicks we have, but please make sure you record that in the exact data section for that as well. But here we just want to know the story of nesting that season. So what has happened? You can comment on that. Let us know. The loons nested in this certain spot, but the water levels rose and as a result, the nest flooded. That's great to know because that helps us make a site assessment on it next year. Or you could write the loons ended up nesting naturally instead of artificially. All of these are great things to help us determine whether the site is still being successful or whether it's failing to nest. So please write some good comments about the story of the loon pair. And in addition to that, you can add in the comments if you saw leg bands on the loons. So a lot of the loons in the northeast are banded. And we really want to see, we want to know if the loons you're seeing are banded because that just shows a good work on behalf of all the organizations that do banding. And it also helps us tell the geographic story of where loons are going and how they're migrating. So look for leg bands. And if you see them and you could take a picture, please do. That would be awesome. We would love to see that. But if you see a leg band, make sure to note the color of it. And also be sure to email us immediately when you see it. So you can write it on your monitoring form and we'll get it eventually. But if you could email us immediately too, if you see a banded loon, that would be great. So thank you very much for that. And yeah, that's a repeat. And with that, I think I'm going to throw it over to Maggie from Maine Lakes to talk about the survey. Okay. Tracy, did you want me to do the screen share thing again or do you just want me to go from the slide? You can do the screen share if you'd like, if you're ready for that. All right. Let me grab. So Ethan, you might have to unshare yours. All right. Okay. Can everybody see the survey? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Beautiful. I suppose. Okay. So the survey is closely linked to, well, I mean, it's made to mimic the form because we're looking for the same information on both. I think it was mentioned earlier though that there is some information that the survey does better with and then some that the paper form does better with. So it's not necessarily an exact copy. So if things look a little different or they're worded a little bit differently, please just reach out with any questions so that we can clarify whatever is needed. Now, the majority of the survey is, has already been gone through by virtue of the paper form being gone through. So I won't make you listen to that again. I will point out a few small details though, including there are, including question type. There are multiple different kinds of questions. And when you see a square box, that's a multiple choice question or not. I mean, clearly it's multiple choice. You can choose multiple answers though. Whereas if it's a circle, then you can only choose one answer. Now, we've tried to make the survey as concise as possible for you. So you don't have to answer questions that might not be relevant every single time. And so that means sometime when you click a box, a new question will appear beneath it. But if that doesn't pop up, that's fine. It just, you didn't click on the trigger to that question. That's all right. The next thing that I want to point out, here's an example of a one choice question and of the linking question. So how many chicks did we see here? If I clicked zero, we can't see zero chicks and two chicks. So you only get one choice. But if I click one or two or three, then we get to another question pops up so that you can choose the approximate age of your chick. Now, there's two more questions that I want to just run through really quickly. And they're both geographic questions. That means they're involving maps. So for this one, oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. The map question up here. Sorry, Tracy. A little disorient. So this is, we're just going to go over both with the chick because they're both functionally the same. I'm going to note that if you are entering the survey on your phone via the one survey 123 app, it looks a little bit different. For example, the little plus sign up here that allows you to add a second data point for a second chick on the, is above the map on the website. And then it's below the map on the survey 123 app on your phone. Regardless of that, though, the question functions mostly the same. You can, if you've got location services for your computer or phone turned on, you can just click use current location and the map will hone into where you are. Alternatively, you can type in the name of your lake and the town and hit enter. And then that will bring you approximately there. So you see what I just use my wheel on my mouse to scroll up and that didn't go the way I wanted. So to zoom into the map on your computer using your mouse, you actually have to hold down the control button. And then scroll, scroll down. Okay. Now, when I'm using maps, I don't really like to... I don't like this map. My preferred is actually imagery. So to get my preferred background, I have to do is click on this. They call it a waffle menu. These four little squares in the corner here. And then that pulls up a choice. And I believe the choices are different if you're on the survey 123 app. But either way, you've got choices. And so this looks a little more familiar to me. It helps me pinpoint where I want my points to go. And so that's where I'm going to choose. Now, you can... If you zoom in, it'll put the marker right in the middle of the page. Now, if you don't see a marker there, you just have to click once. Now, if the marker is in the wrong choice or in the wrong place, you have a couple of choices. You can just grab the screen and move it and then click the screen once and then the marker should move there. And that's all there is. You don't have to press enter. Now, sometimes there is a little bit of a background work when Survey 123 updates their program. This marker sometimes goes away, but you can be sure that you're collecting information here if the latitude and longitude is filled out there. And of course, if you notice the marker not working for you, please just give us a call so we can help set that right. Now, the other map doesn't have this choice for adding one. Adding point because it's just asking, where is the nest? That's a one point thing, but this is for checks. And because you could have up to three, we want you to be able to add more than one marker. So in order to do that after you've got the marker for your first chick placed, on the website, you come up above and you see there's a little trash can and a little number one and then a plus sign. And you just hit the plus sign and you go through the same process again. And you scroll on down and there you go. And it's the same situation. Now, another thing to point out is the loon pictures. If you're using the Survey123 app, there is an option for you to switch to your camera live and take pictures. However, I've found that when that happens, the picture, there's a glitch in there. So the picture isn't always tied to the survey in the back end. So I think it's gonna, it's easiest if you either take the pictures first and then go back and fill out the survey or if you take a picture and then make sure it's saved to your phone, and then you can come in here and then you can select the image right from your phone or you can save it to your computer. Tracy, did I explain that clearly? I think so. I want everyone else to say whether they understood and they all don't. Yes, please do. I'm sure that you have questions about that. Yes, please do. And I think probably the very last thing to note is that there's a character limit for the comment section down here. It's large enough for most comments to be fine, but if you find yourself running out of room, you just find this little plus sign next to the green number, click that, and then you'll have a whole new comment. That you can add. And then down here, when you click submit, and if everything's done correct, you'll get this nice confirmation that all has gone well and we have received your data. Thank you, Maggie. Is there anything else you'd like me to touch on, Tracy? I don't think so. People can ask questions at the end about that. And also, when we come on site, we often also, if you have a computer there or we'll burn our computers, we'll go to the website and go through it with you. So we'll do a survey while we're on site and then enter the data with you. So you'll get a chance to do a live run of that too. Yeah, and if you're ever not sure of how to get the survey, the website is published on the backside near the bottom of your field sheet. And you can also go to the main Audubon website. And I believe the LEA website now also has a link to the survey form as well. Oh, fantastic. Great. Okay. Yeah, Ethan, do you want to just, in the interest of time, I'm not going to do the last slides we had, but let's go ahead and share it anyhow. Yeah. So the last thing I wanted to mention is that another way to kind of boost the amount of monitoring that's happening, we do have several, at least one dozen, if not close to two dozen of these game cameras. So if you have an interest in getting more constant monitoring, it's not real time. We get the data later. All the pictures come off the CD, I mean the SD card at the end, but we can put these out near the raft or near a nesting sign and keep track of things like if loons are looking at the raft and nearby, we can see if there are muskrats or other types of animals using the raft besides loons. And we can get a sense of how much disturbance is happening around. So please let us know if you're interested in that more constant daily monitoring. And it also goes overnight, which is nice too, which captures things that often aren't captured. We did have some quiz questions, but I'm going to skip over those for now just to see how much you're paying attention, but I don't think we really have time for that. The last thing, yeah, is we do have this really nice video that if you want to quiz yourself on being able to read behaviors, you can go to this link. And so we can put that in the chat as well. And just, I know we've put an awful lot of links in the chat, so we will be emailing all these out to anyone who is on this webinar. So with that, yeah, just go to the next slide and just thank you. So hopefully we've given you an overview of why we're doing this monitoring, what we're focusing on, and how to go about doing it. And all of the resources are found on the project website.