it appears the Digital Recorder / Player combination for birding hit a
chord, so to speak... i heard from many tweeters on the subject:

"... I have tried a boombox, CD player with Radio Shack amp and speaker, CD
player with speaker only, and an IPOD Shuffle with the same speaker. I am
not happy..."

"...Compact, with speakers! I've lately started to think of how to
screw/glue little speakers on because I just can't find one..."

among the suggestions were:

"... We have a Sony DSC F707, which I believe is now a discontinued model.
We haven't recorded bird songs with it, in fact we've never done anything
really useful with the sound recording feature. But just for fun, we have
recorded several different things and it seemed sensitive and effective.
Just recently we recorded our little dog snoring, obviously again just for
fun. But we could clearly hear it just as if we were in the room..." ---
this one sounds like a winner, except (1) it's an expensive camera and (2)
the part where it's discontinued (grin)

"...My Sandisk MP player can handle MP3, WMA, and DRM WMA..." --- this one
sounds good, but doesn't record... reviews of similar / identical sandisk
products were variable, from "i'd never own another even if..." to "i
recommend this to all my friends"... hmmm :)

and finally:

"...Birdpod http://www.ibirdpod.com/ IPod mini, plus Stokes, Plus the
software. Get it already installed, and you are ready to go..." ---
drawbacks here are expense ($300, plus bird songs (another $100), inability
to play other formats (like WMA), and finally the lack of recording... the
birdpod looks good, but doesn't match my specs...

so, for what it's worth, i (and a few others) are still on the lookout...
i'm looking at the iRiver H series stuff at the moment, but the cost is
still too pricey at the moment... if you should have a comment about a
product you've used, i'm still open for suggestions :)

perhaps i should make a concerted effort to win the lottery. yeah, that's
the ticket :)

my thanks to everyone who participated in this project...

00 caren
http://www.parkgallery.org
on the internet from JBP
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