Hi folks, I'm gonna get back up on the soapbox, so please bear with me. Everyone on this list likes birds. Most of the people on this list keep track of what they see in some form or other. Some of the people on this list keep lots of detailed notes. But someday, we're all going to be gone. What will become of those notecards, diaries, journals, spreadsheets or databases? For most of us, our families will just discard them as unknown stuff. Wouldn't you rather that all that hard work actually have some value? Well, it could. It won't cost you a penny. I just gave Great Smoky Mountains National Park 1300 separate observations. They are adding it to their database. They are happy about this. I've only lived here 4.5 years, and I know some of you folks have seen MANY more birds than I have. Have you shared that information with land owners? I encourage -no -BEG you to put that information together in some usable way, and give it to the managers of the WMA, or NWR, or city park, or National Park, or wherever it is that you bird. It would be most helpful to them if you would first contact them to find out what format is best. Right now Paul Super of Great Smoky Mountains National Park is trying to update the park's database, and there is simply no observation that is unimportant to him. As long as you have species, date and location (be as specific as you are able) he can use it. Additional information that would make it even better includes: elevation, number of individuals, sexes, ages, and coordinates (preferably in UTM) I would be happy to collect them and give them to him. btw, if you have a database, it is likely that you can simply export your observations into a text-only file. This saves time. charlie ===== ******************************************************************* Charlie Muise, Naturalist in Great Smoky Mountains National Park "To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illuminated mind the whole world sparkles with light." - Ralph Waldo Emerson __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================