President’s Column
Redwood Region Audubon Society:
We Take All Kinds
May 2006
One of the cool things about birding is that you can have fun observing and identifying birds with nothing but your eyes and hears. On the other hand, if you’re like me, playing with the newest high tech toys on the market is a lot of fun, too. So, do these have to be separate ends of the spectrum or can we use technology to help us to get in touch with nature? Certainly there are lots of ways to go high tech when you’re not actually in the field birding. There are many computer programs designed to help your sight-identification, to learn bird songs, and for use as a general reference. Some of these programs also include checklists to track your sighting and even video games (e.g. Thayer Birding Software, YardBirds and many others). Freeware programs are also available (e.g. The North American Bird Reference Book) that have many features of the commercial programs without the cost. Other free references and tools are available on the Internet. The Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter, Virtual Birder, and eBird (www.ebird.org) all provide great tools for high tech birding. Birding list-serves and bulletin boards can also keep you up to date on the latest rare sightings, discussions about identification and birding hot spots (try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nwcalbird and our Redwood Region Audubon listserve at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rras). How about going high tech in the field? Many of us already carry our cell phones in the field to keep up to date on the latest sightings by calling the Arcata Bird Box (822-LOON).
Although locally we don’t have paging services like birders in Europe, for those with email (on your home computer, cell phone or blackberry), you can get instant updates via sound files sent to you automatically when a new message is sent to the bird box, see http://groups.google.com/group/northwest-california-bird-alert.
Another item that many us many own is a digital camera. Straight out of the box, or with a little searching for a well fitting adapter, and your spotting scope can be used as a zoom lens for your camera. Digiscoping is a terrific way to document rarities, work on your photography skills or just have fun getting up-close photos of your favorite birds. Do you own a Personal Data Assistant (PDA)? Well, not only are these useful for organizing your schedule, but you can also use it to store high tide charts, checklists (e.g. www.cal.net/~ani/county.xls) and keep your field notes in an easily accessible electronic format. Not carrying enough electronics yet? How about bringing along your iPod or mp3 music player? Having ready access to over 1000 bird songs without the annoying title tracks (for play back or testing your ID) and not having to swap CD’s to find a specific song, makes these playing card-sized devices a terrific addition to your high tech arsenal. Technology is even attempting to offer the ability to identify bird songs for us with products like the Song Sleuth just entering the market. With all of these advances in technology to help us enjoy birding, it’s hard to imagine why more Birders aren’t going high tech.
Perhaps it’s the simple problem that none of these devices are made waterproof, yet. And of course, birding really is just about enjoying the observation of birds with our own eyes and ears.