Volunteer
Volunteer Opportunities at RPBO
You must be a member
to volunteer in field activities.
Whether you are a leader or supporter, introvert or extrovert, night owl or early bird - RPBO may be the place for you!
Rocky Point Bird Observatory is always looking for enthusiastic, self-motivated, committed individuals to augment our team. Your valuable skills and experience will help further our mission to support bird conservation through research, monitoring and public education. Join us and help us to be the best we can be!
RPBO is a volunteer-run registered charity. Volunteers work off-site on community activities run by RPBO's Education, Outreach and Monitoring teams. There are also onsite volunteer experiences for qualified individuals at our public-access banding station at Pedder Bay Marina in Metchosin during the migration monitoring season, mornings from July 21 to October 18.
We invite you to visit the banding station initially as a guest to see us in action - to learn more about what we do and when, and how you might like to work with us. To learn more about visiting our sites, click here.
Whether you support our education, fundraising, or public presentation events, join the volunteer Board of Directors, work at the station, or work from home doing a variety of tasks - if you have the time and the energy to become a committed volunteer, we'd love to hear from you! Please contact our Volunteer Coordinator at volunteer@rpbo.org - you might be surprised how your diverse or unique skill set could be helpful!
Available Volunteer Roles -check it out!
If you wish to volunteer in the field for our monitoring projects or for public education activities, you first must become an RPBO member by completing the online Membership form.
Volunteers are required to complete a Waiver and a Volunteer Application Form. These forms are provided online when you sign up or renew your Membership. If you prefer, there is also a pdf version of each, suitable for printing: Liability Waiver PDF and Volunteer Form PDF.
Resources for Field Volunteers
It is mandatory that all field Volunteers become familiar with the following RPBO Protocols:
Other Volunteer-related Documents and links:
Online Scheduling: We use WhenToHelp.com to let registered volunteers choose their shifts. Please review our instructions (PDF) on how to use this system, and be sure to add "whentohelp.com" as a safe email sender in your email application to ensure that you get important messages about scheduling. You can also email volunteer@rpbo.org to be added to the schedule.
Transportation Limitations: The nature of bird banding is that it starts very early in the morning or ends very late at night (owls) or occurs in locations well outside of the local public transportation offerings. Our banding station is in a remote area in Metchosin, and public transportation is not available for banding station operating hours. Volunteers typically need access to a reliable vehicle to commute to the site. RPBO does not offer a ride-share program.
PARKING: Please refer to WhenToHelp notices to confirm current parking instructions for Pedder Bay at the start of the season.
RPBO Bird Checklist: While volunteering at our field stations, volunteers will be asked to contribute their sightings of bird species and numbers to the daily observations summary. This is a great way to brush up on your local bird observation skills! Bird Checklist of Southern Vancouver Island (PDF).
You must be a member in order
to volunteer in field activities.