Hello all, Although this may not concern everyone on the state list, I thought I would post this announcement. Some out of the county may be interested since many come in to the city for the peak of Spring migration.
Anyhow, I have set up a be text message alert for New York county (Manhattan) named NYNYBIRD. A text message alert system has the advantage that one do not need to have internet access or a smart phone. This system will work with any cell phone, old or new. You can subscribe here: http://lite.textmarks.com/nynybird Once you are subscribed you will automatically get the text messages other birders send to NYNYBIRD, and you yourself can report your sighting by sending a text to 41411. You _must_ start your message with the word NYNYBIRD, then type in the full species name (no banding codes, please) and the enter the location. For example, "Prothonotary Warbler in Central Park by the Castle" Appropriate texts to NYNYBIRD would be unusual bird sightings (that are chaseable for other birders), out-of-season birds, etc for the locale in Manhattan. Doug Gochfeld, who created text alerts for Long Island (LIRBA), Brooklyn and Queens (BKBIRD) did a nice write-up of how to use group textmessage alerts with examples of bad and good reports here: http://sites.google.com/site/birdingnewyork/text-alerts/brooklyn-queens-birding IMPORTANT. If you sign up make sure you enter YOUR REAL NAME in the username field. This is important because messages gets signed off by the user name. And we want to see who reports of course so we get credibility in the system. enjoy every bird - share your unusual sightings, Anders Peltomaa Manhattan PS. One alert this morning resulted in that Starr Saphir's entire group got to enjoy great views of the first Praire Warbler for the year within minutes after the text was sent. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
