The fact that you are reading this very blog on these very internets is an indication that you, dear reader, are a web-savvy individual. And as such, you are no doubt aware of the myriad options for the web-savvy birder to make use of. Cool sites like
ebird and
birdstack, that allow you to keep track of your (hopefully) growing list and even provide valuable information to influential conservation and research organizations like the
Cornell Lab of Ornithology. That's not even to mention great list resources like
Avibase or local birding archives like
Birding on the Net, or the wide variety of excellent
nature blogs at your time wasting fingertips.
In many ways, from an information standpoint, we're in a birding golden age. More information is available than ever before, and most of the people to visit this website are well aware of their options. But in this post I just wanted to hit on a couple newer things that may be of interest.
First, there's a new social networking site for birders recently developed called
Birdpost, which bills itself as sort of a Facebook for birders. I admit I haven't signed up to Birdpost, and there's a reason for that. Largely because I'm already a member of both ebird and Birdstack and I'm not particularly interested in plugging my life list into another cyber monster. Both ebird and Birdstack have their distinct advantages, ebird because of the impact your individual list can have with regard to long term bird population studies (an appealing aspect for birders) and Birdstack because of it's worldwide scope.
I fail to see any advantages from a bird listing point of view that Birdpost provides above and beyond what is already offered. Plus there's the possibility that while free now, Birdpost retains the right to start charging for its service. Yet another reason to avoid it, really. I reserve the right to be proven wrong, however. Perhaps I'm missing something that may well make Birdpost worth checking out in the future.
And second, while Birdpost claims to fill the Facebook void for birders, there's always the real Facebook that can be re-jiggered to provide some advantages for nature bloggers. This has especially been brung to my attention with the recent inclusion into the Facebook borg (it will eventually claim all, there's no use trying to deny its power), two
pretty prominent bird bloggers.
With that in mind I added a little widget on the side of my blog so those of you who are Facebookers, and you know who you are, can make youself a "fan" of my blog. Now, this is not a blatant troll for "friends" or "fans", though you can add me if you like, but a way to make you guys aware of different applications that are available within these fun little social networks when you're not searching for old elementary school classmates.
I know there are several nature bloggers already on Facebook, so I created a group,
Facebook Nature Bloggers, as well. Feel free to join if you are a nature blogger or just a fan of nature blogs, it may not go anywhere but it's sometimes fun to know the person behind the blog, so to speak.
So the interweb provides you many outlets for taking your passion for birds and nature into the cyber realm. Seems like we're really only limited by ourselves at this point, who knows where it will take us.
