Hi,

Last fall I noted the Findlay Prairie Falcon first got widely reported on
the Birding Ohio Facebook Page and not the list serve.  That group now has
more than 1600 members, and while it was the place to post rarities for a
few months, it has evolved into a perfectly nice place where people post
their photos and ask for identification help.

Also noteworthy has been the development of real time posting of photos of
rare birds from the field.  This first happened with the Brookside
Reservation Western Kingbird.  We Ohioans seem to be on the leading edge in
this regard, which has only become possible with the advent of "smart"
mobiles and phone scoping.

In the mean time some other pages have developed on Facebook.  Ohio Rare
Bird Alert, which is dedicated to reporting rare birds and seems to be well
used for that purpose.  Additionally, Listing Birds Ohio has become the
place for more Birding related discussion and fun stuff related to the
sporting aspect of Birds in Ohio. This seems to have also become a reliable
forum for reports on rarities.

At the same time it seems Jen Brumfield has become the clearinghouse for
quick reporting of rarities.  If you call or text her with a find, she has
a text group list and gets the word out quickly to everyone on that list.
 This is sort of like the old phone trees of the 1970's and '80s but more
rapid and perhaps egalitarian.

Jen's efforts work much like a Twitter feed would, but there seems to be
considerable resistance to getting a Ohio rare bird twitter feed up and
running.  The resistance is not active, but just seems to be the result of
people not understanding twitter and how it can be used for this sort of
purpose, and the misconception that a "smart" mobile is needed to access
the feed.  It is not as twitter will work with any phone capable of sending
and receiving text messages.

Meanwhile, this forum has not gone away and many birders make an effort to
post here when something good is found in the field.  The major change
being the list server is often the last place where word gets out.

The really great thing from my perspective is how Ohio's birders are making
every effort to communicate and get the word out about rare birds as
quickly and widely as is possible.

While most everyone now has a mobile it will be a few more years before
everyone has a smart mobile which is more than just a phone.  Once 99.73%
of the birding community have adopted "smart" mobile technology, it will be
interesting to see how our communication again evolves.  As it is now, many
of us are checking both the list serve and Facebook when we are in the
field to make sure we are not missing something.  These tasks may become
more automated as could happen with a twitter feed.  As this happens I hope
our communication becomes less fragmented as is the current situation.

A chilly 41 degrees on Gildersleeve Mountain this morning.

Haans

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