Hi all,

Well as previously mentioned, Neil and I are working hard to make both
BirdingNZ.Net and BIRDING-NZ work for the members. We have already seen
a large number of people take up the challenge of joining BirdingNZ.Net
(with 89 members currently) and some interesting discussions so far.

The advantages of a forum type site for discussion have already proven
themselves, with two good examples being a discussion on the id of an
albatross photographed in Awarua Bay by Craig McKenzie and the posting
of images of the probable male chestnut teal at the Otaki sewage works
by Igor Debski. These really show the advantages of being able to
directly post images and discuss, with the full 'thread' of posts
visible to all those logging on to take a look. I know there will be a
lot more to come!

In response to the poll and discussion it is obvious that many members
are very keen to see the continuation of BIRDING-NZ, with email messages
being seen as an easy way of keeping in touch with rarities and bird
sightings. So to help with the flow of such information between the two
media, Neil has managed to wrangle with the technical bits of the
BirdingNZ.Net site and I have added it as a member of BIRDING-NZ. What
this means is that ANY post made within the 'Bird Sightings and Alerts'
forum on BirdingNZ.Net will automatically be sent as a text based email
to BIRDING-NZ.

In a nutshell, if you want to just post once, and are a member of both,
post it into the forum if you can. It will appear in both places. If
you are just a member of BIRDING-NZ then continue to post there and one
of the current moderators (Neil, Sav, and Brent) will also post it in
the forum.

There may be a few minor teething issues, so please ignore any hiccups
in the system.

Cheers and thanks,
Brent

Brent Stephenson PhD (Ornithology)
Eco-Vista: Photography & Research + Wrybill Birding Tours, NZ - "Great
birds, real birders"
PO Box 8291, Havelock North 4157, New Zealand
Phone +64 6 877 6388 Fax +64 6 877 6300 Cell +64 274 426 638
email brent@... or brent@...
web http://www.eco-vista.com and http://www.wrybill-tours.com



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