We want to take this opportunity to thank Mary Holland for taking on the 
Weekly Vermont Bird Report for the past four years. Mary will be 
concentrating more on her nature photography and writing after the last 
weekly bird report comes out next week. It takes a lot of time each week 
to compile all the bird sightings and sift them down to a readable and 
interesting report. With the connected world we have, the amount of 
messages and data each week can be tremendous. Mary jumped right in and 
learned how to get it done as efficiently as possible.

Records of Vermont Birds began in 1973 after a statewide conference on 
birds was held. I have every volume of the seasonal reports here in the 
office and I thought I would page back in time and see when the weekly 
report began. The first reference I found to it was in 1975 when birders 
were reminded to submit their bird records on paper or call the VT Bird 
Alert phone number to report any unusual or rare species. As technology 
marched on, at some point they began to record a weekly report on the 
phone for birders to call in to get the latest information. I remember 
taking my turn to record those in the early 1990s at VINS. "Hello 
Birders, this is the VT Rare Bird Alert for Friday April 17th. The 
highlights this week included..." I never once had to say 
"Golden-crowned Sparrow" though.

Birders always seem to be one of the first groups to embrace new 
communication technology. Soon, we were not only recording it on the 
phone,but emailing it to a new email list serve that was hosted at 
Castleton State College. With typing and posting, came the ability to 
provide more information and slowly the VT Rare Bird Report morphed into 
the longer VT Bird Report. And then it was posted on the internet too. 
It was taking a lot of time to write the report! Thankfully, along came 
some great volunteers to take it over passionately for a few years. But, 
they moved from the region and and it was back in our hands. With all 
the other job responsibilities in the VINS Conservation Biology 
Department, it was getting to be difficult to keep up with it. A grant 
allowed us to hire Mary Holland to take it over in 2004 and do a bang up 
job.

But, with technology marching ever faster and funding ever tighter, it 
appears that the VT Bird Report is at a crossroad. How long did it take 
you to learn about the Golden-crowned Sparrow sighting? I bet it was 
within 24 hours of the sighting! Bird reports are flung across 
cyberspace at the speed of a gyrfalcon. Some of us are texting (is that 
really a verb now?) as we watch! See a crazy bird, whip out the cell 
phone, and like wildfire on a dry and windy April day, birders are on 
the move. Planning a birding adventure for the weekend? Well, you can 
visit all the state list serves 
(http://www.birdingonthe.net/birdmail.html), draw up an eBird map with 
data from the past week (http://ebird.org/content/vt), monitor the eBird 
Google gadget (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/Google_Gadget.html), 
visit Jack Siler's eBird rare bird report map 
(http://birdingonthe.net/gmaps/eBirdMap.html), and the list of resources 
goes on and on. The internet has seriously changed how we bird!

With all these changes in how we communicate and share our bird 
sightings, we think that perhaps the Weekly Vermont Bird Report might be 
a bit like the rotary phone, we all like the idea, but when we actually 
use it we realize why the technology changed. For now, given how much 
time it takes each week to compile a full bird report and how fast we 
all learn about a rare species via other communication channels, the 
Weekly VT Bird Report is taking a hiatus. We encourage everyone to 
report there noteworthy sightings on the two Vermont bird list serves - 
Upper Valley Bird and VT Bird. But please don't stop there. ALL (not 
just the rare and unique) of your observations are most useful and 
quickly communicated if you put your checklists on Vermont eBird. It's a 
great tool and is improving each year. And, if you have videos and 
photographs, you can get a free Flickr account and share your stuff with 
everyone on the VT eBird Flickr Group 
(http://www.flickr.com/groups/vtebird/pool/). Some of us still have 
dial-up at home, but almost every library in Vermont has a fast, free 
internet connection.

Of course, we'd love to hear your ideas and opinions about the Weekly 
Vermont Bird Report too. Drop us a note and let us know what you think 
about the hiatus, maybe you have an idea to streamline it and make it 
less redundant, or perhaps you have some time to volunteer towards your 
idea. Whatever your thoughts are, we'd like to hear them.

Thanks everyone and good birding!

Kent

Kent McFarland
Vermont Center for Ecostudies
PO Box 420 • Norwich, VT 05055
802.649.1431
http://www.vtecostudies.org/

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