On Sat, 21 May 1994, Steve Hallstrom wrote:
>
> I would like to suggest that tweeters not become a birdchat and that we
> have a policy that it is for serious discussion and special sightings. IS
> it really that interesting and to whom that a black headed Grossbeak is
> a seldom visitor to my feeder? If we don't adopt such a use pattern the
> list will most likely degenerate and the good discussions of Dennis, Gene,
> Skip, et al will disappear. Is that ok with you?

My attitude should be self-evident, but I would like to add that there
actually is value in day-to-day reporting of events of a little different
nature than the one Steve mentioned. There is a potential for both
environmental value and ornithological value in such reports, for example
if everyone on tweeters sent in the first arrival (and last departure, if
fairly obvious) dates of common species in their neighborhoods, we might
have a lot better idea of the progression of migration than we get just
from written reports. Russell Rogers is compiling bird records from
Washington right now, and he is on the tweeters list, so your records would
serve him in his compiling.

Similarly, if black-headed grosbeaks have been coming to your yard for
years and, all of a sudden, there aren't any this spring, this has little
significance *except* if 10 people report such a finding over a period of a
year or two. Then maybe we are on to a real decline in the species,
otherwise difficult to document. The same is of course true if a bird is
increasing, as many are.

As we have Russell to compile compile records of all species, and Gene Hunn
to put the less common species on the rare-bird alert, these electronic
messages are becoming more valuable and easier to move into the permanent
record. Only if there are compilers can these individual sightings be of
more than personal interest, but with the opportunity to put them on the
record, they really add up to a greater good.

I agree that tweeters shouldn't be a place to record "I heard a winter wren
singing in the forest this morning, and it gladdened my heart"--as much as
hearing a statement like this gladdens my heart too. I think we have been
free of much of the kind of drivel (no offense meant to anyone, of course)
that has found its way into many bulletin boards, and it would be great to
keep it that way.

Dennis Paulson
dpaulson at ups.edu