This area is for general discussion on Birds and Birding.
#85195
I am curious how much use Twitter is getting for bird sightings? Anyone using it for their sightings or are they any hashtags for bird sightings in BC Regions that people are following?
#85198
Jigme wrote:I'm planning on using it when I go to Magee Marsh.
How? What I mean, @who or #what would you post too? Are there any popular hashtags for local birding, or site specific birding.

I have not really looked at birding with twitter but realized only recently that there might be lots going on that I (and perhaps others) are not aware of.

Kevin
#85203
Why use Twitter? To my knowledge there is no BC bird alert on there, and if one was set up it would likely be incomplete. Russ started one a while ago and it never really took off. How about using Melissa's BC rare bird alert instead? It provides the entire province with the most up to date provincial and regional rarities. I strongly suggest all birders follow it to stay informed about rarities in the province like this forum used to thanks to Melissa. She works tirelessly for us all and is constantly spreading information about the most recent rarities.

Link: http://bcbirdalert.blogspot.ca
#85204
VancouverBirder15 wrote:Why use Twitter? To my knowledge there is no BC bird alert on there, and if one was set up it would likely be incomplete. Russ started one a while ago and it never really took off. How about using Melissa's BC rare bird alert instead? It provides the entire province with the most up to date provincial and regional rarities. I strongly suggest all birders follow it to stay informed about rarities in the province like this forum used to thanks to Melissa. She works tirelessly for us all and is constantly spreading information about the most recent rarities.

Link: http://bcbirdalert.blogspot.ca
Sorry, not what I meant. Of course use and consult the BC Rare Bird alert.

Twitter is ubiquitous with so many other things. All I was asking is if anyone was using it for birding? This is not necessarily about rare birds, but since twitter is a 'real time' micro-blog, I was curious if there was some groups or people tweeting sightings or what is happening at location or something bird related

UPDATE: Kind of like what the Victoria Natural History Society is tweeting:
https://twitter.com/VictoriaNHS
#85303
I think if people did post #name of park (all run together of course), and what they saw, that might be cool. Others in that same area could search for hashtags and see if anyone had put anything out there.

This might not be right for rare bird alerts, but for sharing info in general...giving people something to look for on a specific day or place. It might also be fun for non-birders who are in the area that might come across the tweet and get a bit of interest in birding.

The trick is to get the location names exact or workable, for instance I just searched twitter for milllakepark (it took me a couple of tries to come up with the Abbotsford park) and sure enough an Abbotsford News reporter had tweeted a picture of the eagles nest there on Feb. 23.

I think it has possibilities, if not for serious birders, but certainly for others and for beginners. Thanks for bringing it up! It is kind of funny that the twitter symbol is a bird, lol. Tweet tweet
#85305
Just searched bcbirding (for things people have tweeted with the hashtag #bcbirding) and lots came up. I think it's already happening. Some nice pics and other info....
#85315
Thanks Wendy,

Yes, looks like twitter is happening is some degree. I did some more searches (difficulty is guessing what to search for) and found some trialed bird sighting hashtags used by number of people. No consensus on what hashtags to use by the community and no publicizing of hashtags and I think why it has not been a 'thing'. eBird does a lot of what we are looking for in terms of sightings but it is delayed info by maybe 20min or more depending on data refreshes--ebird will filter out species at risk which on twitter is the sole responsibility of the writer. RBA blog does this as well and only delay is when the editors have the time to make the update which is usually pretty fast.
#85731
VancouverBirder15 wrote:Why use Twitter? To my knowledge there is no BC bird alert on there, and if one was set up it would likely be incomplete. Russ started one a while ago and it never really took off. How about using Melissa's BC rare bird alert instead? It provides the entire province with the most up to date provincial and regional rarities. I strongly suggest all birders follow it to stay informed about rarities in the province like this forum used to thanks to Melissa. She works tirelessly for us all and is constantly spreading information about the most recent rarities.

Link: http://bcbirdalert.blogspot.ca
Awesome link! I'm sure my grandfather would love this

Thanks for sharing
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