I have to say I'm enjoying the debate/discussion around this topic. I think
it points up the fact that people are subscribing to VA-bird for a variety
of reasons from reading enjoyment to quick up-to-the-minute birding news.
I'd like to point to Matt Anthony's excellent and thoughtful comments in his
recent post. Specifically he points to a significant overlap between
information provided in VA-bird and that provided in eBird. Also I applaud
Kurt Gaskill's efforts to help bridge the gap by duplicating one of the
standard eBird reports in VA-bird for non-eBird subscribers.
I get a sense from Matt's description that a Google Group might provide a
better interface with eBird data and reporting functions while preserving
the passive notification feel of a listserver. I think it is worth
exploring. The only place where I see a gap, (and one that VA-bird does not
do all that well on either) is what I would call the "text message goose
chase". We've all seen this done over the last year with rare birds that
appear and disappear around a locality (National Airport Snowy Owls,
Virginia Beach Crested Caracara). E.g. "I had him on runway marker LA7
twenty minutes ago"; "He's over by the boat channel now."; etc. I guess
one could call this real-time birding updates. A listserver is kind of
clunky for this purpose but it gets the job done. We need something for
birders in the field to share information quickly.
By the way I had high hopes for the BirdsEye iPhone app, but so far it has
always fallen short of being a real help in the field.
Dave Larsen
Haymarket
