Birds that inhabit marshes are often secretive and diffi cult to detect. This has resulted in a shortage of baseline population information for this group of birds across North America. Because of the decline of wetland habitats, it is imperative that accurate methods for detecting wetland bird species be developed. Although new techniques have been adopted for surveying breeding marsh birds, sampling methods and certain environmental factors may infl uence survey results. In these two papers the researchers address whether species detection rates are improved by broadcasting a species vocalization during surveying (Soehren et al. 2009) and whether tidal heights (i.e., water levels) can infl uence survey results (Rush et al. 2009).