Hi Tweets,

I'm forwarding the Birdbox report from Hal Opperman. Please copy him
with any replies <halop at corbis.com>.

Dan Victor, Seattle, WA <dvictor at u.washington.edu>
Tweeters = http://weber.u.washington.edu/~dvictor/

On Fri, 4 Aug 1995, Hal Opperman wrote:

> Dan:
>
> I wrote up the attached notice for the next WOS newsletter which will go to
> press toward the middle of this month. There is some useful information
> here, and to maximize distribution it would be good to put it on tweeters as
> well. I am no longer a subscriber, so perhaps you would post it for me?
> It can go on right away -- no need to wait for the newsletter version to
> appear first. I'm sending it as a Word document which you can cut and paste
> into your email application, though it should then be checked for
> formatting. Please give my email address, too, in case anyone wants to
> comment directly. Thanks!
>
> Hal Opperman
> halop at corbis.com

==================

The Washington BirdBox was placed in service on April 1. The BirdBox had
received a total of 153 incoming messages as of July 31 -- an average of
nearly 40 a month. Calls to listen to messages are running in excess of
forty per day, some days approaching a hundred. Use patterns replicate
the geographic distribution of the WOS membership, with 60% of all calls
originating from the 206 area cod e (Tacoma-Seattle-Everett vicinity),
about a fourth from the 360 area (the rest of western Washington) and the
remainder from eastern Washington and out of state.

By and large, callers have kept their messages brief and to the point. On
a few occasions more specific indications of locality might have been
welcome. Often, too, it would have been useful if persons leaving
messages had also left their telephone numbers so others could reach them,
especially to help identify mystery birds, or offer directions. Most
messages have dealt with rare, highly local, out-of-range or otherwise
"desirable" birds that others might be expected to want to see, but the
rarity-chasing aspect has been nicely balanced with general-interest
reports of seasonal arrivals, or concentrations of more regular birds at
favorite birding sites.

Several people have availed themselves of the option of leaving a comment
in the private mailbox of the system administrator. All comments are
welcome and will be replied to when appropriate, but please leave your
telephone number! Many have not, and there have been several instances
where I have been unable to get back to callers to offer assistance.

Two recurrent problems in using the BirdBox have been reported by several
users. Both are easily solved. The first is being cut off when you are
leaving a message. This has happened in a very few cases when the caller
is unusually softspoken and pauses for more than a second or two during
delivery, or when there is a poor connection and reception is faint. The
BirdBox is set to cut off when it can no longer detect the sound of a
speaker's voice. This feature protects against the BirdBox being blocked
by someone who calls but says nothing, or leaves a message but doesn't
sign off or hang up completely. The best way around this rare problem is
to write your message down in advance so as to avoid having to grope for
words when delivering it, and to speak briskly in a normal tone of voice.
If you still have a problem, change phones.

The second problem has been reported more often. It involves failure of
the BirdBox to register numerical responses entered on the telephone
keypad. In a couple of cases this has proven to be caused by defective
equipment on the caller's end, and was immediately solved by switching to
a different instrument. The usual cause, though, is not hardware but the
timing of the keystroke, and it is most commonly reported when entering
the access code (the number of species of chickadees resident in
Washington). There is a very brief dead spot that occurs immediately
after the prompt message. If you press the key at exactly that moment,
the BirdBox does not hear the tone. This phenomenon seems to be inherent
in the software; I have been unable to correct it. Solution: wait a
second or two after the end of the prompt message before entering the
reply. Or even better, you can blow by the prompt altogether. As soon as
the BirdBox answers ("Hello! Welcome to the Washington BirdBox..."), you
can punch the chickadee number at any time and move ahead without waiting
for the end of the spiel. The same is true for the prompt that asks for
the area code. "To help us understand...:" [cut in and enter your
three-digit area code, and you're on your way]. I've never known the
BirdBox to fail to register a response entered in mid-message like this.

A few people have expressed annoyance at having to "pass a test" in order
to use the BirdBox. The chickadee code is not a test but a safety screen,
designed to decrease the likelihood of nuisance messages being left on the
BirdBox by making it slightly more difficult to gain access. Other voice
messaging services of this type have been bothered on occasion by obscene
calls. Some legislative bodies are even considering laws holding the
owner liable if offensive messages are left in a public system to which
minors have access. Putting in a password -- which is all the chickadee
number is intended to be, an unpublished password relatively easy to
figure out for someone in the birding community, but relatively hard for
an outsider -- is not foolproof, but it does reduce the risk of such an
event occurring as well as the potential liability of WOS and your
friendly system administrator. Even if you don't get the number right on
the first try it's easy to look up in any field guide, and you'll have
learned something in the bargain. One day I found a comment from a
leading California birder. He had entered a wrong answer several times,
then gave up and looked in his bird book. He now knows -- and will never
forget, he says -- that Boreal Chickadees live in Washington.

Of course we could ask for the number of species of antpittas of the genus
Grallaria resident in Peru and really tighten up security! Tune in next
April 1! What an anniversary! Until then, good luck and good birding.

Hal Opperman
System Administrator
Washington BirdBox (206-454-2662)
<halop at corbis.com>