Subject: Fenno-scandian high-tech birding
Date: Dec 9 19:16:51 2002
From: Gary Bletsch - garybletsch at yahoo.com



Dear Tweeters,

The cell phone solution would seem somewhat backward to European birders. Many Tweeters already know this, but it is worth mentioning that the Scandinavian birding community is far ahead of us on the use of high-tech communication in the field. Last summer I had the good fortune to bird the Stockholm area with a local. He was actually one of the guys who started the whole birding pager system there. There, the birders carry pagers on their belts.

The thing goes off, and all you see is a long series of numerals. The numerals equate to species, location, observer, and other details. With a little practice, a birder can glance at the unit and discover that, say, Sven Svensson has spotted an American Widgeon in Valdemarsvik harbor, across from the lutefisk stand.

The fellow I birded with had his unit set on vibrate rather than tone, so I never heard it go off. He checked it four or five times during our outing, but of course the birds on there were all too far away for me to worry about--and mostly southern European specialties, anyway.

Good birding,

Gary Bletsch

garybletsch at yahoo.com

somewhere near Lyman, WA



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