saw a Cooper's fly across Rt. 50 while driving in to the office this morning
(0900) -- but it was large enough that it might be female. about 200 yards
east of the Patrick Henry intersection. chris kessler
---- SteveYoung@xxxxxxx wrote:
Saw the male Coopers Hawk that has been frequenting my Glencarlyn
neighborhood in Arlington again yesterday. Seemed like most of the birds
other than the
ubiquitous American Robins were kinda hunkered down, waiting for the storm! I
did hear Cedar Waxwings at one point but couldn't find their little flock.
Mostly I want to call to the VA-Birds community's attention a new capability
that Google Maps has launched called "My Maps." My Maps allows anyone with
moderately-good PC capabilities to create personalized maps that can then be
made
publicly-accessible (the default) or held private. To see an example I've
created with a few Northern Virginia birding sites catalogued, see:
_http://tinyurl.com/yprmlk_ ;(http://tinyurl.com/yprmlk)
[TinyURL is a handy, safe, free site that converts giant URLs into "tiny"
ones. But if you'd prefer to go to the direct Google link, it follows; good
luck:
_http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=100021350000052964530
.00000111cc5834ac4db9c&z=13&ll=38.880744,-77.125912&spn=0.058129,0.1157&t=h&om
=1&layer=t_
(http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=100021350000052964530.00000111cc5834ac4db9c&z=13&ll=38.880744,-77.125912&spn=0.058129,0
.1157&t=h&om=1&layer=t)
]
The real power of the My Maps capability is that you can create your own map
and add as many points as you want, with notes or whatever, and then use the
dynamic capabilities of Google Maps to scroll around, switch between road map
views and satellite image views, check traffic info using the "Traffic" tab,
etc. etc. If you choose, you can share it all with others. *And*, if you have
Google Earth installed, you can click on the link that says "KML" and it will
open up the map in Google Earth and let you do all the cool Google Earth
stuff
(but not add points as easily).
I see all sorts of potential to use this capability for birding, like
cataloguing sites, planning trips, helping other birders with directions to
sites,
marking spots of particular sightings, identifying and scouting possible new
locations, etc etc. I think it's a very exciting new capability and I just
wanted
to point it out to those who might be interested. If you play with it,
enjoy!!! And feel free to send me comments on my sortta play map mentioned
above,
off-line. One of the things I want to do is add links to all the Virginia
Birding and Wildlife Trail stuff of interest.
Cheers,
Steve Young
Glencarlyn, Arlington
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