The participant has considerable freedom in selecting survey points within each square for each season and may pick any location for the point that meets the requirements.
The requirements are:
- You must pick 12 points anywhere within the square that meets the other requirements. No need to cover the square or be uniform.
- No point can be within 200 meters (219 yards) of any other point.
- The habitat of the point must be typical habitat for the target species for that season (The survey points in the Winter can be different than the survey spots in the Spring.)
- Survey points should be physically and legally accessible – you should be able to drive or walk there safely in winter/summer and have the proper permission to access any points on property without general public access. Roadside points are fine as long as they are safe to access.
- Avoid areas with active hunting during the choosen season
- It must be possible to reach all twelve points to complete the survey in one day.
National Audubon Climate watch has an online mapping tool that can be used to pick the sites. See the instructions HERE if you want to use it. However it maybe easier just to use the following procedure.
