I agree!  Some of us are relatively new to Maryland.  Even including what
county you're reporting from would be a BIG HELP to those of us not as
familiar as the rest of you with the local hot spots.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Todd Day" <>
To: <>
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Bird Listing Format and a small request


> Greetings,
>
> As regional editor for North American Birds, I try to take a look at every
> email on MDOsprey to see if there are birds of interest for the seasonal
report.
>  Add to that a few listservs in Virginia (the region covers both states),
and
> I end up reading a ton of email.  That said, while I agree it is easier to
> read things in list format, it isn't particularly difficult for me to scan
a
> paragraph and pull out the noteworthy birds.  Uppercase letters do make
things
> stand out, but I don't use them in my own reports to listservs.  To me, I
say to
> each their own.  I don't love the idea of each report looking the same.
>
> One thing I would like to request is that people put a locality and date
on
> their posts.  I end up with a few inaccuracies in my reports, many
stemming
> from taking the date of the report as the date the bird was seen, and
often that
> isn't the case.  Also, a lot of places in Maryland and Virginia are
unknown to
> me, and it takes a bit of digging or follow-up emails sent to folks to
figure
> out what county the bird was seen in.  It seems like it wouldn't be too
> difficult to track these things down, but sometimes there are dozens of
such birds
> that I need to determine where they were seen.
>
> Despite my efforts of reading email to help compile the seasonal report, I
> would love to encourage more people to send me a report at the end of the
> reporting periods (30 November, 28 February, 31 May, and 31 July).  I
certainly miss
> a fair amount of birds that I would like to include in the column, and
only
> way to be sure I know about them is in a report sent to me.
>
> Best,
>
> Todd
>
> ---------------------------------------
> Todd Michael Day
> Jeffersonton, Virginia, USA
> Culpeper County
> 
> ---------------------------------------