Isla Biodiversity Conservation, Inc.

Calayanos and a team from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) joined ISLA volunteers in a training course on surveying the Calayan Rail held last 7-11 May 2007 in Longog in central Calayan.

After half a day of lectures and demonstrations, participants took part in a survey of rails for 4 days, which was sometimes hampered by rain. A total of 94 census stations in and around Longog were visited by the survey team. Initial results show that rails were present in one third of these stations and that there was on average 0.67 rails per station.

A total of 5 Calayanos, 3 non-Calayanos and 3 DENR personnel participated in the training course, although the DENR staff were unable to join the survey proper.

Participants learned the Calayan Rail survey protocol that was developed in the past two years by the project team. They were trained how to record data and use equipment like a handheld GPS unit, the cassette recorder and minidisc player.

The survey involves walking around the forest all day, sometimes in the rain, and visiting designated stations. In each of these stations, rail calls are broadcast and birds responding to this broadcast are counted.

Miguel Ferido, an ISLA volunteer from Los Banos, Laguna said, "From all the walking we do during the survey, I feel like I'm one of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring," referring to characters of the Tolkien classic.