Hi Tweets,

I have gotten some private response to my rather terse Arctic Loon post, and
I would like to make a couple of comments:

Whether we like it or not, Tweeters seems to be Washington State's
ambassador or 'window' to the outside birding world. Birders from (for
example)California and the East coast look to tweeters for information about
rare bird reports, as well as for a general sense of what Washington birding
is like.

The WOS birdbox seems to be the preferred mode for many of Washington's
active birders to report their findings. This may be because they don't
have computers, or due to the current nature of Tweeters content. This has
led to an unfortunate 'dilution' of bird reports, where some are posted to
Tweeters and some are called in to the Birdbox. Franny has been carefully
transcribing the Birdbox messages for Tweeters, but the several-day delay
may make the information less useful. So if you want to know what birders
are turning up in Washington, you still need to check the Birdbox.

Here's a quote from a recent post by David Graf: "He seems to think that
racking up hundreds of miles on the old belchfire to observe the last
remnants of an endangered species is somehow doing something." Such a
misunderstanding about the relationship between serious birding and natural
history seems to characterize the tenor of Tweeters. I'm not trying to
change anyone or anything; but the reality seems to be that Tweeters and the
Birdbox are different in character; just don't be 'miffed' if some birders
don't post rare bird reports to Tweeters.

Rick Romea
romea at pmel.noaa.gov
Seattle,WA
TEL (206)523-5831 (Home)
(206)526-6781 (Work)