Survey Tips

If you are contemplating doing walked transect work like this, then there are some important things to remember...

1. Safety first: Make sure your phone is charged, someone knows where you are, and do not work alone. Two way radios are cheap, and work well over about 1/2 mile in a forest, and can often be more reliable than a mobile phone for staying in touch with your safety buddy.

2. It goes without saying, make sure all your equipment is charged and working correctly before setting out.

3. If you plan to work with natural or assisted night vision, make sure you know the paths you are going to use, a forest looks very different in the dark (especially if crossing streams or ditches) and is potentially very dangerous. Always take a torch for emergencies and spare batteries for the night vision/torch.

4. Make sure you have some means of knowing where you are... I use my HTC phone to find my location and Google maps with the paths marked up in order to make sure I'm on the right course. Old hands will no doubt "dead reckon" on an OS map...

5. Make sure you are wearing  "silent" materials like cotton, and empty your pockets of keys and anything that might cause false alarms on the recorder. I wear a combat jacket and trousers which are wind proof, breath well and make very little noise. Also, avoid anything with metal zips... There is nothing worse than goretex or other man made fabrics for rustle on the recordings, or jangling zips! It goes without saying, wear sensible footwear for the terrain.

6. Walk deliberately, but without treading too hard or dragging your feet, otherise you will find all sorts of additional sound on your recordings.

7. If you're planning to use stopping points, make sure you log the GPS location or at least use some form of landmark for reference in case you want to do a repeat survey.

8. Finally, all land belongs to someone somewhere, so keep to the public rights of way. If the land is privately owned, it also goes without saying that you should get written permission from the landowner before doing anything.