Welcome new participants to our COASSTLite! home page. Here you will find the links and resources you need to get started with our program. Please reach out to us right away if you have any difficulties, or would like to sign up for a future training.
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For the first two decades, COASST surveyors were trained in only one way: at an in-person, hands-on event, hosted at a local community center or event space. In 2020 we decided to use our time in lockdown to develop a virtual training system. COASSTLite! – a virtual training for our beached bird surveyor program – was born.
Today there are two COASSTLite! virtual trainings to attend before you will be a ‘fully fledged’ COASST surveyor on your own stretch of coastline:
- Level 1 (~3 hours) invites new participants to learn how to survey a beach and document beached birds in a standardized way. Level 1 trainees will survey their own beach monthly, but will rely on the COASST office team to identify beached birds and enter data online.
- Level 2 (~2 hours) trains established participants (those who have completed at least TWO monthly Level 1 surveys) in the techniques of measuring and identifying a bird while on survey. This training can take place at one of our monthly virtual events, or ‘on-the-fly’ at an in-person training/refresher (either with COASST staff or a current COASST participant.)
The sections below detail how you can participate in our virtual training program, so you can get started on your own beach as soon as possible!

