john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman) (01/05/90)
First I wrote: +--- | I liked Greg's example of the difference between | birdwatching and birding. Just one question, Greg: if I | spend two years looking all over New Mexico for Common | Ground-Dove and then get my state bird on my backyard bird | feeder, is that birding or birdwatching? +--- And Greg Pasquariello (grp@unify.UUCP) answered: +--- | It depends on whether you saw it while getting your morning | coffee, or heard about it on a Rare Bird Alert! :-) +--- Does my nextdoor neighbor Phil count as a Rare Bird Alert? He told me he'd seen it. (``Right, Phil, I'm *sure* you saw a Ground Dove. Which one? The one right in front of the Inca Dove flock? The one with the plain back? and the dark spots on the wings? Oh...(blush)...okay, I guess I'll believe you now,'' I said, while performing the obligatory State Bird Dance.) I got spoiled listening to Joe Morlan's excellent Northern California Rare Bird Alert. Unfortunately, there is no RBA in this state. It's not fair. New Mexico's checklist has 450 species, and it's the fifth largest state, with 6 of the 7 life zones represented; its eastern plains get a plethora of eastern warblers (like our Swainson's and Chestnut-sideds from the spring), while its southwest corner is faunistically quite similar to that Mecca of birding, southeast Arizona (Olive Warbler, Bendire's Thrasher). I'd like to start a Rare Bird Alert, but I wouldn't know how to go about it. Any suggestions? -- John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, New Mexico USENET: ucbvax!unmvax!nmtsun!john CSNET: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu ``Let's go outside and commiserate with nature.'' --Dave Farber
grp@unify.uucp (Greg Pasquariello) (01/06/90)
In article <3713@nmtsun.nmt.edu> john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman) writes: >I'd like to start a Rare Bird Alert, but I wouldn't know >how to go about it. Any suggestions? >-- >John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, New Mexico I guess the first thing you would need to do would be to advertise it; Birding would publish it, but you also need local interest and support. You probably do enough birding so that you could bootstrap it with reports from your trips. Hell, if there are more birds like the ground dove, I might even call from here! Secondly, you would need reliable tape equipment. I don't know what the "pros" use, but if the tape machine was down alot, you probably wouldn't get too many repeat callers. I HATE getting everlasting busy signals. Actually, when I look at it, it seems like it might be pretty easy to do! Good Luck. If you do it, please publish the number here. I've thought about starting a national bird alert BBS. One that was FREE. But I'm not sure that there are enuf birder's that are computer literate/in- terested. Also there are problems with connect time costs for long distance calls, gathering reports, etc. If I had a way a finding out if enough people were interested, I might do it. -greg -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greg Pasquariello (916) 920-9092 grp@unify.UUCP Unify Corporation ...!{csusac, pyramid}!unify!grp