Butterfly Monitoring
The Greenway is excited to partner with local researchers to track the migratory patterns of butterflies throughout the park and downtown Boston.
Why track butterflies?
Consistent, long-term monitoring of urban butterfly populations is essential for protecting these important pollinators.
Tracking this data over time will…
- Allow us to better understand the plants in the park that support these pollinators.
- Compare trends of plant bloom cycles with butterfly sightings in various parts of the park.
- Support the research of entomologists trying to understand the migratory patterns of butterflies throughout the northeast
- Allow us to better measure the impact of our innovative ecological practices.
Responsibilities
Volunteers participating in the butterfly monitoring program will volunteer under a “Citizen Science” participation model.
- Butterfly Sightings: recording the species, time, weather conditions and location of butterflies in the park. Volunteers will track butterfly sightings in the park via an online form.
- Attendance Tracking: all volunteers are responsible for tracking the hours and days that they volunteer.
- Volunteer Training: with enough experience, you may be asked to onboard other volunteers into the butterfly monitoring processes. As this program allows for an unlimited number of participants, the more the merrier for data collection!
- Records Management: volunteers may be asked at the end of the season to manage records in our database for use in analysis
Qualifications and Requirements
- All butterfly monitoring volunteers must complete a training session with Conservancy staff or other butterfly monitoring volunteers to ensure that their methods of recording data are properly input.
- Once trained, participation in this program can be done at any time on your own! We ask that you commit to completing at least 5 butterfly surveys per season, ideally significantly more. Consistency in the people tracking data allows us to account for discrepancies across sightings.
Application Process
Please reach out to Volunteer Manager, Avery Morgan at [email protected] or [email protected] to demonstrate your interest in the program.
