[texbirds] Re: TOS Meeting Text-based Bird Alert - For TOS Attendees and Interested Parties
- From: "Susan Heath" <sheath@xxxxxxxx>
- To: <texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 08:25:20 -0500
This is a great idea Steve! Makes me wish I was going to the meeting so I
could participate. I hope you find some great stuff and everyone has a good
time.
Sue
Susan A. Heath, PhD
Gulf Coast Bird Observatory
103 Hwy 332 West
Lake Jackson, TX 77566
979-480-0999
www.gcbo.org
From: texbirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:texbirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Steven Gross
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 10:39 PM
To: TEXBIRDS
Subject: [texbirds] TOS Meeting Text-based Bird Alert - For TOS Attendees
and Interested Parties
I would like to introduce a text message-based bird alert system to be used
during the TOS meeting this weekend. It will have served its purpose by the
end of the meeting Sunday afternoon or Monday and it won't be used again.
By using this alert system, groups in the field can inform all subscribed
participants of good birds they are seeing. This spread of information,
which will also be in written form as the Master Checklist at the Civic
Center, will allow people to chase rarities or other desired birds while on
their own time. I envision a lot of birders out in the field on Sunday
morning chasing birds that were posted over this system during the weekend.
We could have used Twitter or Facebook to accomplish this, but I personally
do not have a smart phone (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). We already
have a TOSRBA text alert system, which you may know about, and it works
exactly the same as this system (in fact, it's the same provider).
It works like this:
-Subscribe to the alert by sending a text to this number: 41-411. The body
of your text should always start with our list name, which is porta. You
need not put anything else in the body of your text when you subscribe.
-Any time a trip leader, participant, or birder-at-large finds something
notable, he/she can post it to the group. This allows for real-time marking
of birds and their status. Here are two examples: porta black billed cuckoo
@ goose island sp 1030 a.m. : porta Cape May Warbler Paradise Pond
This system, like any other RBA-like arrangement, is only as good as its
data, so I'd like to encourage all of the trip leaders (or someone in each
group who'd be designated by the leader), those of you who will be scouting
Wednesday and Thursday, our Big Day team, and any other interested party to
put birds on this system.
Please begin to use the system as soon as you get into the Port Aransas
area, even Wednesday or Thursday. If you're scouting a trip, please post the
good birds.
If field trips post to the system as soon as they are out in the field on
Friday, we could really have something.
One potential downside to spreading information this way would be that
people might want to leave their assigned field trip to chase something. I
hope that doesn't happen, and it probably won't unless the Big Day kids find
a Keel-billed Motmot in Bron's Rorex's yard, in which case we'll all
probably be there.
Please get the word out about this to other participants who may not see
this message. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please
let me know.
As I said, the system will not be used after Sunday, so you should never get
a text from that source afterwards.
If this works well, we will do something like this again at the Winter
Meeting of 2013. Something to look forward to!
See you in Port A.
Steve
Steve Gross
President, Texas Ornithological Society
sgross77@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cell: 281-787-3888
http://www.surfbirds.com/blog/Peregrinations/
http://vinesleuth.com/uncorked/
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