Hi Rosemary,
Eek !! , 40 miles is only 66.7 km. I go further than that for my
shopping each week. Just kidding, I go about 3km.
We also have mobile coverage problems too in some of the remote areas -
that's if there's any credit left on the SIMCARD.
Tony.
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Rosemary Royle
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 8:51 PM
To: birding-aus
Subject: Rare Bird Alerts Data Capture
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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