JUNE 20th (1 Viewer)

ALL THE INFORMATION SUPPLIED COURTESY OF BIRDNET LIMITED, If you wish to discuss the Rare Bird Information services Birdnet offers, please call 01298 73052
and we will be happy to answer any questions you have


W MIDS SPOTTED SAND MARSH LANE N-R 9.15AM AT LST. FROM A452/B4102 HEAD S/ON
A452 FOR 1ML THEN R/INTO MARSH LN+R/AGAIN TO N-R. PERMIT OBTAINABLE AT GATE
PLEASE GIVE GENEROUS DONATION TO THE BUCKET.

OXON GLOSSY IBIS OTMOOR RSPB FROM FIRST SCREEN 9.05AM AT LEAST.

SUFFOLK ICTERINE WBLR SINGING NW/OF BUNGAY OFF A143 AT OUTNEY COMMON IN LOW
BUSHES E/OF POPLARS 400YDS N/FROM GOLF CLUB C/PK TM.328.904.


ABERDEENS GREY-H.WAG LOCH OF STRATHBEG RSPB FROM STARNAFIN FM VIS'CTR.

NORFOLK HONEY BUZZARD SWANTON NOVERS WATCHPOINT 10AM.

KENT SPOONBILL GROVE FERRY FLEW TWD SSTODMARSH 7.40AM.

SOMERSET DRK R.N.DUCK BARROW GURNEY RESV ON N/SIDE OF NO.3 TANK 11.55AM.

FORTH DRK LESSER SCAUP GART GP'S 1ML SE OF CALLANDER. FROM A84 LAYBY CROSS
RD & TAKE TRACK BEYOND METAL BARRIER THRU CONIFERS TO PICNIC TABLE,THEN
FOLLOW TRACK TO RIGHT NN.643.062

What's happened? - no news for 10 days

Is it just me - or has news stopped being posted?

Must be the 'Summer lull'

Things are pretty quiet around here at the moment.

as this feature now been suspended? Daily posts appear to have stopped

Where have the daily rarity sightings got to? Is this a now discontinued service? I await your news with interest.

Regards

John Marshall said:

Where have the daily rarity sightings got to? Is this a now discontinued service? I await your news with interest.

Regards

Click to expand...

If you check: http://www.birdnet.co.uk/news.html

Info is only available since before the 10th of July.

BTW If you are interested, Rarebird alert will give you a free trial of their service for a week at the moment.

Why don't forum members just post their own UK rarities on this forum anyway?

Hi Dan,

Good idea, I wonder how many active forum members will take you up on this. Should I be lucky enough to find a rarity I will certainly comply to your excellent suggestion.

Cheers, John

It would have been good to get a warning that this service was being disconnected.

also the fact that people's request for information about what's happening is ignored is disappointing.

Is there any way of contacting Steve directly to ask whether this service wilol be restored?

Regards,

Padraig.

I'm not sure what is happening myself. I will see if we can find and answer for you all.

I thought I had already explained, obviously not. We are in discussion with A company with a view to starting our own service. This would include pager and mobile phones.
We are however concerned that the whole service will collapse as other companies providing the News could not do it free Like we intend to, in this case no news would be bad news. I will let you know after we have had more meetings with a telecom co, who will provide free equipment in return for advertising.


Steve

Padraig said:

It would have been good to get a warning that this service was being disconnected.

also the fact that people's request for information about what's happening is ignored is disappointing.

Is there any way of contacting Steve directly to ask whether this service wilol be restored?

Regards,

Padraig.

Click to expand...

Not at all. This service was a third party Info information service. If registered you'd know;-)

Steve said:

I thought I had already explained, obviously not. We are in discussion with A company with a view to starting our own service. This would include pager and mobile phones.
We are however concerned that the whole service will collapse as other companies providing the News could not do it free Like we intend to, in this case no news would be bad news. I will let you know after we have had more meetings with a telecom co, who will provide free equipment in return for advertising.


Steve

Click to expand...

I thought you had I've been getting Emails from Birdcall, stating their service to all yahoo groups will be suspended as from yesterday!

Although their free service is available On-line, just register.

Thanks Steve,

Apologies if I missed a previous explanation.
Good luck with you negotiations.
Could you keep us posted periodically maybe?

Cheers,

Padraig.

Providing live information on the latest rarities in the UK on the internet for free is everyone's dream but in reality this cannot be done. If it were to be successful then we are all (that is those interested in rarities) in deep trouble. At the moment, the system works like this :-

The Regional Birdlines (that is Scotland, Wales, North West, North East, Midlands, South East and South West) instigate the majority of breaking news in this country. During the past 15 years, they have done their best to work out an excellent relationship with the vast majority of rarity finders within their respective regions and operate a news-sharing system, whereby regular contributors are either texted or telephoned about major or interesting finds within that area.

Next off we have the pagers. Both Rare Bird Alert and Birdnet break up to 30% of the daily bird news through their network of subscribers, and in particular, specialise in updating (on a very regular basis) many of the major rarities through their large network of 'twitchers' (ie, people that spend most of the time chasing other people's rarities).

Following this, we have Birdguides.com, who have successfully managed to nurture a number of local contacts and as such break news (of mainly lesser rarities or localised species) on their internet service. There are a few further companies (eg Birdcall) who occasionally break news but largely work off the two pager networks.

Now..what all of these services have in common is that they cost a lot of money to upkeep and operate and rely on the support of their informants. However, this recent surge in internet gen is now risking the whole survival of Bird Information. The Birdlines who instigate most of the information are finding it more and more increasingly difficult to survive as more and more people are turning to the net for their gen. If they crumble, it is inevitable that we will lose much of the information we take for granted, particularly from Scotland and Cornwall, as many of the keen, local birdfinders in these areas are not interested in seminating their bird news in internet fashion. Without the birdlines, the pagers will have very little to copy and vice versa, Birdguides etc to (I have made several studies of the daily bird flow at different intervals through the year and the percentage of gen gathered from outside of the Birdlines has rarely exceeded 40% even in October).

So...in summary..offering up-to-the-minute bird news for free on an internet-based site is really not an option unless you want to jeopardise the future of the whole network.

Lee G R Evans
Rare Birds Weekly Magazine
UK400Clubonline

nice precis Lee

things work pretty good (i mean well of course! terrible grammar :eek!: ) as they are at the moment

maybe people should get away from their computers a bit more during daylight and do a bit of birding!

....and it seems I have upset Mr Barclay too Lee! See for stonechat thread