On Sat, 20 Jan 1996 fredbird at halcyon.com wrote:

> Clark Blake's recent post re monitoring the northward migration via
> Tweeters reminded me that WOSNews in the early 90s twice published a
> comprehensive Dennis-list of migratory birds so as to encourage
> readers to note arrival dates. The response, as I recall, was not
> great. Here's the list once again, and rather than sending results
> to Dennis (unless "you" want them), publish them on Tweeters for the
> record, for all to enjoy, and to inspire others to get out and look:

Having a few years of compiling Washington Field Notes under my belt, I
have made the observation that the Tweeters listserver has, perhaps
unknowingly, made a huge difference in the reporting of arrival dates
and more importantly departure dates. It is always exciting to see the
first of the common birds of the spring after not having seen them all
winter. Departure is a different matter. After seeing a common species
all summer, it is difficult to make your self take not of them not being
here.

On internet, it is easy to type out a short message saying "I saw my first
Western Tanager today." It is not easy to write that out on a piece of
paper, stick it in an envelope, address it, put a stamp on it, and truck
it off to the post office.

I file away all of those messages on tweeters that have contained reports
of birds seen in the field. (BTW, if you have ever posted a sighting on
tweeters and you are not a member of WOS, you have probably missed your
name in print in WOSNews! JOIN TODAY!) For the last reporting period, I
saved over 200 pages of messages from tweeters! The messages were without
the long headers (just the sender, date and time, and subject are saved
from the header information). This is a lot of reports. This is probably
double the amount of information sent in before the internet craze.

All of this is great, but an unintentional effort can not compare to a
focused one.

Russell Rogers

Russell Rogers
4510 Glenn Way SW
Seattle, Washington 98116
(206) 935-6280
rrogers at halcyon.com