Thanks to everyone involved over the years – Russell, the moderators, mailing list hosts, and all those who contributed content.
It’s been a long and wild ride with lots of bird observations, science, birding trip news, calls for assistance, personal views, birder profiles, occasional disagreements, not-so-occasional humour, and almost always good-natured and polite discussion. All those attributes have made Birding-aus the most successful mailing list I’ve come across (on any subject).
Very best wishes to all,
Stephen
Stephen Ambrose
Ryde, NSW
From: Birding-Aus <> On Behalf Of Russell Woodford via Birding-Aus
Sent: 7 August 2026 5:55 PM
To: birding-aus (E-mail) <>
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Swan Song
Hi everyone
I'd rather think of this message as our Swan Song - the alternative is Dead as a Dodo!
For the last couple of years, the BIrding-Aus mailing list has been very quiet. Then exceptionally quiet. But in the last few months there has been a flurry of activity - in bounced messages! The one or two messages to the mailing list have each generated up to about 300 error messages, mainly because some of your email servers haven't liked our mailing list settings.
After some discussion with our moderation team it's been decided to discontinue the Birding-Aus mailing list. This is something that has seemed inevitable for a while, due to very little traffic and many other services that have taken the place of mailing lists. Our website http://birding-aus.org will continue in some form, but I am hoping to migrate it (technical term, but take it as a birding term if you like!) to another host. We have been very well served by EMWD.com for 12 years, but it's time to find a less expensive option. Our Facebook Group is still active (far more active than the mailing list!) and any announcements about the website will appear there. I hope to offer some sort of online forum through the website in due course.
So a final HUGE thanks to all our contributors over the years, and particularly to moderators:
Paul Dodd
Ruth Woodrow
Karen Pearson
Peter Shute
Bill Stent
This team has contributed many, many hours of work to keep things running smoothly, approving messages, dealing with bounces, and helping people subscribe/unsubscribe. I am very grateful to you all, and especially Peter and Bill, who have done most of the moderating over the last few years.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed sightings, trip reports, ID help and so many other forms of assistance. It's a great community, and I am very sad to announce the end of the mailing list. However, our Facebook presence continues, the website is getting rebuilt, and of course the archives are still a useful resources. I've been so privileged to meet many of you face-to-face, and have some great birding memories as a result.
Thank you, everyone, for helping to make Birding-Aus such a friendly, welcoming, helpful community. I wish you all many more wonderful birding experiences!
Russell Woodford
Birding-Aus List Owner
