Birds News Services for Beginners? (1 Viewer)

I am a relative beginner and enjoy getting out to see different birds. There are still lots of common birds I have yet to connect with, but I enjoy getting out to see rarer ones as they pass through my local area.

However, I do not have the time or money to travel more than an hour away, whether it be an Eastern Crowned or Rufous Turtle Dove.

I use Bird Guides free service which at least gives me an indication of what is about and if the bird(s) are at a known reserve then its reasonably simple to go to the reserve and get pointers from folk already there. If the bird(s) are simply listed as a town or city then its obviously a lot more tricky.

I know that the information is obtainable through registering with the news services, but at £40 a year for RBA's web access, I really think this is too high a price for how much I will use it. RBA claim this is 11p per day, but realistically, I will use it max 20 days per year as that is about the amount of time I can find to go birding.

What I was wondering if the news services offered a cheaper service, say £20 a year that gave access to a limited amount of 'county' info. For example you register up to 3 county areas that you want to see info for and it auto filters to this info only.

I was wondering if this might cause full subscribers to downgrade their membership, or if it would encourage more people like myself, to pay towards the services, rather than relying on word of mouth or scouring message boards?

There is also a good chance that as I get more into birding, that I will want more info and will upgrade as I deem it worthwhile.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for reading. If there is enough interest in this thread, I will forward it to the main news services for comment.

Thanks for reading.

The 'restricted area' news services are often simply free email groups (or even threads on here), so I don't think you necessarily need to pay anything. For instance, most of the local news for Essex and London is circulated on Yahoo groups.

I don't know whether there is an equivalent for your area, but I reckon it's worth getting in contact with a few local birders who might be able to help. You might well find that you can get onto a local 'grapevine' where someone will forward snippets of news on to you, as well.

Most areas of GB have regional news groups which most are free to join.You get an email when something is found etc.

Steve.

Thanks for the responses. I've had a look for a Yahoo group, but no luck. There is a premium rate phone number to call for bird info in Scotland, but on the few ocassions I've called, the message started with all the megas in Shetland! A few pounds later and I got to hear my 'local' news, but sadly nothing locally to see.

I guess I'll just have to keep looking for my own birds.:t:

bongofury said:

Thanks for the responses. I've had a look for a Yahoo group, but no luck. There is a premium rate phone number to call for bird info in Scotland, but on the few ocassions I've called, the message started with all the megas in Shetland! A few pounds later and I got to hear my 'local' news, but sadly nothing locally to see.

I guess I'll just have to keep looking for my own birds.:t:

Click to expand...

The Birdlines tend to put the rare birds first and then go down to the more local records as you listen further into the message.

CB

bongofury said:

Thanks for the responses. I've had a look for a Yahoo group, but no luck. There is a premium rate phone number to call for bird info in Scotland, but on the few ocassions I've called, the message started with all the megas in Shetland! A few pounds later and I got to hear my 'local' news, but sadly nothing locally to see.

I guess I'll just have to keep looking for my own birds.:t:

Click to expand...

What about starting your own yahoo group. It's probably not that difficult, and you'd be in the know then. You could include the surrounding counties and that way you'd would attract a bigger following, and so more bird news. Somebody has to be first Twitter would probably be a faster way of disseminating the news, as it can be received in text form on phones...I think. I'm sure somebody on here will point you in the right direction.

Twite.

In general, the answer has to be just to go out birding at some of the best local sites, get to know the keenest local birders... and ask what they do for news.

Try this site in your area.

Thanks everyone for the advice. Starting a group up sounds like a mighty good plan:t: