[TN-Bird] East Tennessee Birding -- another tool for birdring
- From: "BBC Net" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:18:09 -0500
TN-Birders,
I recommend to you the new East Tennessee Birding
Facebook group which Keith Watson and John O'Barr
have been promoting.
John used to administer Knox County Birding on
Facebook, but he has decided to expand the group
to incorporate all of East Tennessee, hence the
group name East Tennessee Birding.
The new approach reaches out to at least 30
counties from Bristol to Chattanooga and all
along the Carolinas.
This Facebook group was previously known
as Knox County Birding and served mostly a
group of counties in and around Knoxville.
I have subscribed. It is for those who are
subscribed to Facebook. It is not a listserv
provider which delivers posts by emails.
It is a very colorful, exciting and beautiful
Facebook site. You can hardly imagine
all the fabulous bird photography and even
a baby photo in an infant car seat.
Most posts are brief and you are not
swamped with documentation and lots
of details about birding trips and specific
locations and the who, what and why
and where background of a list such as
TN-Birds which must have that information.
The moderators will eventually need to
fine tune the details a bit because
there will be many posts from this area
of nearly 20,000 square miles with little
to no background. That is a challenge for
any such online distribution system.
In its introductory days, there appears to
be little bird club and state ornithological
society promotional information and such.
It is all about enjoying birds and mostly
the beautiful photos that talented regional
birders are sharing.
Tennessee Birding came on the scene
a year of so ago and made it clear it was
not a bird photo posting site. That Facebook
group has not rejected bird photos but it
has offered birders a much less documented
place to chat and write about birding adventures
and bird finds than TN-Birds. It serves a
need in the birding community.
East Tennessee Birding serves the digital
camera birders extremely well.
Email lists have served the Tennessee
birding community for 20 years. Many of
you well remember the Valley Birds Net
of 1995 which served not only the great
valley of Tennessee but many surrounding
states that later broke off into their own
state lists. Today TN-Birds serves
birders, birding communities, bird clubs
and the Tennessee Ornithological Society.
Groups like East Tennessee Birding are
not divisive to birding and birders of
the Volunteer State.
The Knoxville Chapter of TOS has a Facebook
group. A lesser-involved Facebook group
is also online. The chapter has a website.
It also posts regularly on TN-Birds
The birding nation is expanding with
almost wildfire rage. The numbers of
birders in the state must be amazing.
eBird is a sampling of all the birders
everywhere in our nearby home communities.
It does not always allow us to know where those
birders live or how to reach them. It mostly
provides us a real name and we meet
many of them in the field and eventually
some of them online. eBirds is the best
archive system of birding we have anywhere.
Birstol Birds Net is a listserv many of you
probably have not heard about.
It serves all of the counties in Upper
East Tennesee north of Cocke County
and the upper end of The Great Smoky
Mountains National Park. It also serves
all counties in Southwest Virginia as far
north as the New River and to West Virginia.
It also serves Western North Carolina
in bordering counties to some extent.
Bristol Birds Net posted nearly
200 message so far during the month of
January 2015. It serves a
different purpose than most because
it mines eBird lists from all of the
counties above and edits them to
the significant observations, The
list does not provide many
bird photos but they are used
by some to illustrate events and
document some species.
The fast growth of birders in
the state and popularity of
internet birding is providing
a big audience with a nice
share for all such lists and
Facebook groups.
In the earlier days, America
Online provided a Tennessee
birding group. Then listservers
found their niche and Google
Groups and Yahoo Groups
sprouted.
The Herndon Chapter of
TOS has operaed a Yahoo Group
for more than a decade but mainly
for its membership.
Knox County Birding was a
local Facebrook group and
was largely flying under most
of our radars.
The Bristol Bird Club has used
a similar local Facebook Group
for about six years.
East Tennessee has nearly
a half a dozen bird clubs and
a larger population of both
citizens and birders.
The larger bird clubs are at
Nashville and Memphis.
The larger metro area clubs
have functional and useful
websites.
TOS maintains a reference
website. It is an archival
site for the society and
does a very good job of being
the electronic conduit for the
society's newsletter The Warbler.
You can also read digital online
PDF forms of the state journal
of ornithology published prior
to 11 years ago.
A few months ago I was invited
to an ad hoc round table type group
of birders from across the state
who were discussing priorities
and looking forward to birding
needs of Tennessee.
Online birding groups, TN-Birds
and the future of a state publication
that documents the ever-changing
bird movement and distribution
in Tennessee were heard.
Much of what goes into THE SEASON
reports in the state journal is gathered
by regional editors from various listservs.
With the many different digital and
online sources, new challenges are
being presented.
Twenty years ago we were
essentially laughed out of a fall
meeting of TOS because we
set up a computer and said you
would need one very soon as an
important part of birding.
One senior birder from Knoxville
said we had lost our minds and
were "crazier than h _ _ _."
Many birders fought off the idea
of owning and using a computer
for birding. Cell phones were
seen as an unnecessary gadget
with little or no potential and another
cost to pay out each month.
The majority of birders have caught
a new wave of gadgets called
digital cameras.
eBird is seen by many as the last
straw. So is Facebook and all the
other new frontier communications.
It is obvious that the communication
tools birders use must be simple,
and as lacking in time and effort as
possible. Digital cameras have
made photo documentation and
many other aspects of birding
much more simple.
Few birders can edit or post their
digital photos to a listserv because
they just don't want to know how
to do that and not willing to learn.
Virtually gone are the days of
buying film and processing slides.
Gone are the days of slide projectors.
PowerPoint is a new challenge that
has sent lots of good birding programs
to dusty closets. Scanning slides to
a digital format is too much for many
older birders.
Digital cameras can take hundreds of
exposures and most cameras can cost
thousands of dollars. I use a pocket
Panasonic Lumix and seldom go afield
without it. I maybe spent $300 to buy
that camera.
Hundreds of birders simply take photos
with their cell phones and even
take photos thru their spotting scopes
with their cell phones. It is not about
taking great photos. It is mostly about
getting good documentary photos of
very good or rare birds.
Some birders avoid this because they
believe others should take their word
for anything they say they saw. Of
course some say they don't want to
waste time taking photos of the birds
they see. That has not always been
their way of birding but digital photos
and digital speed has changed their
approaches.
Digital photos can be cropped and
sized and sorted with amazing
speed and accuracy.
For many, they post their eBird site
lists in the field for ever site birded and don't
mark field cards. We get their birding
eBird list reports within minutes.
Even the politics of when and how
to post bird list and good observations
has bothered many birders and they feel
like they are walking on thin ice when
they post in front of others.
A number of our youngr birders don't
own field guides. They use electronic
book type gadgets in the field.
Birders race all over East Tennessee
and the state with nothing more than
GPS units mounted in their cars which
give them verbal directions to the rare
birds. Many have new model cars that
come with GPS built in them.
Meanwhile, lots of birders are on
Facebook and lots of them take and
post beautiful and valuable photos
of birds. They do that easily and
quickly without having to edit photos.
Facebook makes that seamless.
I recommend to you the new East
Tennessee Birding Facebook group.
Many of you will enjoy it very much.
Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
.
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