birding-aus

Rare Bird Alerts Data Capture

To: "birding-aus" <>
Subject: Rare Bird Alerts Data Capture
From: "Rosemary Royle" <>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 10:20:34 -0000
Another two-penneth from the UK.

One small point which is worth thinking about - the types of rarities in the UK 
differ somewhat from those in Australia. Many rarities in the UK only hang 
around for very short periods - basically they are lost and are trying to be 
somewhere else. After a feed and a rest they are off again. Or in many cases 
they probably just die. They are also often in difficult-to-access places such 
as northern Scottish islands. So speed and immediacy are of the essence.

As far as I can tell most rarities in Australia hang around for a while (though 
not quite long enough - we looked for the Burren Junction Lapwing about 3 days 
after it was last seen!) so a web based or email system is potentially all that 
is needed. And also the core group of Twitchers is much smaller so they can 
still use the good old telephone should a mega-important thing turn up. I also 
think a completely unmoderated system such as Twitter could be useful - the 
group concerned is quite small and potentially would know each other so it 
would be up to each user to decide whether they can rely on the information 
being supplied. But the mobile phone coverage issue can't be ignored.

PS We only twitch things in Pembrokeshire (max 40 miles Tony) and only then 
reluctantly, and they have usually gone by the time we get there! And we can't 
use mobile phones either as we have no coverage where we live!

Rosemary Royle
Wales, UK



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