Birdingblogs

by Gunnar Engblom October 19, 2010 0

Two top UK bloggers join birdingblogs

The contest is over

No one managed to stay on the contest over the presentation of first 8 birding bloggers and make correct guesses for all of them. However, honorary mentions must be done to Jeremy Gatten, Mark Cranford and Dalcio Docol for keep trying during the racing pace of presenting the participants in Birdingblogs.com – which is launched tomorrow Oct 20, 2010. (You may have a look now, but you shall not find much…so best to come back tomorrow).

I now have the honor of presenting the last 2 bloggers from the UK. They are the amazing photographer and birder Rebecca Nason of Shetland Exposure (who also provide the photo in the title) and Martin Garner of Birding Frontiers and also the recent book the Frontiers of Birding (apparantly out of print)

Northern Harrier. Martin Garner

I am very pleased to two of Britains most acclaimed birders on our team. This will be good. Look out for the launch tomorrow.

by Gunnar Engblom October 18, 2010 14

The best birding blogger is not even a birder?

How to become a good birding blogger!

To be a good birding blogger it takes more than just being a good writer or take great pictures. Our bird blogger #8 says:

I feel a bit humbled to be in the ranks with you and the rest of these bird bloggers.. I am not a good writer or photographer.. And don’t always blog about birds..

…yet she probably has more readers than any of us to her blog (which quite often is about birds). Why is that? Well, this is why:

She is passionate about here blogging
reads and comments on a lot of blogs
nurture her friends on the social network platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Having her on our platform will teach us all to become more social – a vital trait for any blogger. She has a special asignment to introduce the readers to other birding blogs and look for guest-writers if any of the core-team are not available.

Birding Blogger #8. Who am I?

Self professed amateur birder
mushroom picker
full time motor-home traveler.
The blogs most efficient Bird/nature blog reader

I am sure you know who I am talking about, and agree with me that she is the best birding blogger. We all love her! And she is too modest – She is a great writer and photographer. Nuff said! I wait your comments!

UPDATE: Yes of course. Dawn Fine and her Bloggy Blog!

by Gunnar Engblom October 18, 2010 6

ABA president also join birdingblogs!

From Delaware to Colorado to Birdingblogs

This one is just too easy! The new president of ABA (American Birding Association) that takes office in November, was asked to be part of this project- and accepted – before the new job was secured. He shall not post much in the beginning I am sure, but he shall nevertheless be a window to the American Birding Association providing interesting material about ABA and its activities.

Interestingly, ABA has also announced a multi-author blog – and made several posts. Today 10000birds announced that their blogging platform shall include various new names. Competition you may think? Not really, I think of it more of a bird blogging paradigm shift. I think we all have come to the same conclusion. To reach the audiences the serious birding blogger aspires, one needs to join forces with others. 10000 birds have understood this for a long time.

Birdblogger 7. Who am I?

Tour leader
New ABA president
Horse-shoe crab flipper

State your “guesses” in comment sections, please.

UPDATE: Jeff Gordon of course. Here you find Jeff’s own blog.

Photo: Northern Gannet by Jeff Gordon

by Gunnar Engblom October 17, 2010 2

Birdblogger 6. Who is this?

Well travelled birding guide and naturalist in South America

So with both birdblogger 1 identified as Kenn Kaufman and birdblogger 2 identified as Gyorgy Szimuly, those having answered these two ID nuts right need to get on with blogger 3, 4 and 5 – in order to stay in the contest. This nut may be a bit tough though. Although, I will be the only blogger in the multi-authored birding blog project, there is one birder that will contribute with as much (and possibly even more) stuff than myself from South America. Have a guess who this blogger may be?

With no further a do, here are the clues.

Wings
birder/naturalist
Arizona
Central and South America

As usual the answer in comment section below. The correct answer will be revealed very shortly, since the launch of the birding blog web-site is on 20.10, 2010.

UPDATE: It is Wings tour leader Rich Hoyer who I am referring to and who also joins birdingblogs. com. Rich is travelling a lot for Wings, so he shall provide us with lots of juicy material from this explorations in Central and South America. His own regular blog is called the Birdernaturalist.

by Gunnar Engblom October 15, 2010 3

This birding blogger is not dead!

An incredible resurrection of the UK:s funniest bird blogger

I continue to present the members of the forth-coming multi-author birding blog which will launch on Oct 20. This hilarious blogger has officially stopped blogging. However, there are evil voices claiming he is resurrected and blogs under the pseudonym of Mr White on Reservoir Cats – something he vehemently denies.

In case someone takes offence to something written on it (Reservoir Cats) in the future and decides to hit me, I’m stating now that I’ve got absolutely nothing to do with it. So don’t hit me – I don’t like being hit, I’m an exceptional coward.

He will, under his real name, be blogging every Monday on our new multi-blogger platform.

Bird blogger 5. Who am I?

Legendary UK birding blogger
Funny as hell
Uncensored
Achieved guitarist

Have a guess in the comment section below who this may be. Great to have this blogger on our team. Stay tuned for more birding bloggers presentations coming up the following days.

UPDATE: Yes, it is Tom McKinney. His old disfunct blog Skill Bills can be found here.

by Gunnar Engblom October 14, 2010 3

Austria Birding Blog

Wallcreeper. Butterfly bird of the Alps. Photo Dale Forbes

No it is not spam. Sorry for bombarding Surfbirds and Birdforum with these entries from my blog. No, the idea stems from fact the bird-blogging is too time consuming for normal mortal birders – and the rewards (readers) are too few. Even the big names rarely have more than 100 visits daily. My idea was to get a few blogging friends together under one platform to have an easier load and get more readers. We shall see how it works.
If you have followed this contest you shall see that there are some great bloggers present. I will continue to present one blogger per post…and hopefully you will continue to put your guess in the comment section below. There is still time (until tomorrow night) to put your guess on Blogger 1 (which is dead easy). Blogger two and blogger three shall be revealed on Saturday. As mentioned before, the comment section is temporarily moderated, so you can make a guess, but it will not show right away so the correct answer is being given away.

The next blogger has always had a very a visually attractive site, with large photos of great birds. I particularly remember his Wallcreepers. Here are the clues!

Birding blogger 4 – Guess who I am?

Austria
Digiscoping
Swarowski
The Alps

UPDATE: Yes, it is Dale Forbes of Discovering Alpine Birding.

Photo credits: Dale Forbes

by Gunnar Engblom October 13, 2010 1

Tiger Girl – who is she really?

And Now Check the ears - comment by my birdingblog "friend"

Here is a photo by the third of my BirdingBlog” friends” I have never met. The contest goes on! I still have not revealed who BirdingBlogger 1 and BirdingBlogger 2 are, to give you some more time (and chance to win a good prize – see below). Please, place your guesses before it is too late.

Birdingblogger 3. Who am I?

Sadly, she does not blog anymore – too time consuming she says.
She is still active on Facebook – the fearless Tiger Girl.
From Melbourne, Australia
Tour Guide
Birds of Borneo.

See, was that not easy? Put down your guesses for this friend and the previous ones in the comment section below and take part in the contest. Prizes? OK, time to reveal!

First prize is a free daytrip in Lima (yes, I know the trip to come here will cost you much more but the price is valid for 10 years…so take your time.) The day trip may also be a pelagic if you coincide the dates we are running such.

Runner up prizes. Everyone who gets all 10 answers right will get a Kolibri Expeditions cap or a rainponcho! So what are you waiting for? Don’t worry if the comment does not show up immediately. I have activated moderation so the comment doesn’t show right away, giving others the chance to start taking part in the contest.

UPDATE: Only one correct answer in the comment section and one correct answer away from the blog. Susan Myers is author Birds of Borneo and started a blog called the Life of a bird tour leader, which was very promising, but as she said to me – never got enough traffic to justify the hard work writing post. I think the new platform on Birdingblogs.com will be perfect for her, as she may do a combination of her witty Facebook posts as well as ocassional longer blogpost. Here she shall have a larger audience.

Photo credits: Susan Myers

by Gunnar Engblom October 12, 2010 7

Birdingblog 2. Who am I?

Everybody’s friend on Facebook.

I said ten “friends”. Here is the second friend in the streak of 10 birding friends. Why 10? Because something big is about to happen on 20.10 2010. This is what this 10 friend presentation will lead to. Best to follow the blog series to learn what it is all about.

This guy I feel I have known forever – although we never met. We know each other best on Facebook. If you are on Facebook and you like to connect with other birders it is likely he is your friend too.

Birdingblogger 2. Who am I?

Hungary
Shorebirds
Facebook active birder

Do I really need to say more? If you haven’t made a guess yet on BirdBlogger 1, do so here.

UPDATE: Yes, of course! It was the Hungarian shorebird fanatic Gyorgy Szimuly (aka Szimi) who was presented here. Here is Szimi’s new Posterous blog. 10 people who have made the correct answer go on to the 3rd round.

Photo credits: Gyorgy Szimuly

by Gunnar Engblom October 12, 2010 13

10 birdingblog friends. Guess who I am?

New series of posts

I am just back from 9 days photographic expedition with Hadoram Shirihai, and now want to get on blogging again. I’d like to introduce you to some “friends” I have never met in real life. Think about that phrase a moment and put yourself back in time 10 years. It would have sounded a bit silly then. Today, it is not uncommon to have a lot of “friends” over the social media platforms. Within the birding community, this is possibly even more frequent than what is normal. I have 10 birding blog “friends” that I would like you to meet. Although I am not going to tell you who each one is. It is for you to guess. How well do you know the birding blogosphere? Let me know in the comment section who you think each one is. The first person to name all 10 bloggers correctly shall win a fine price.

Birdingblogger 1. Who am I?

Lived on cat-food in his youth when birding
Rock n Roll
Field guides
Identification guru

Answer in the comment section, which is moderated..and …why your answer will not show before minimum 24 hours. Good luck! Look out for a prize if you get all the 10 birdbloggers right!

Update: Yes. Of course it was Kenn Kaufman. Here is Kenn’s and Kim’s blog. Kenn shall be blogging on Mondays on our new platform.

Here are some of Kenn’s most well known books.

Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
– a great tale like a birding Kerouak – or a hitch hiking birder guide to a Big Year
Birds of North America (Kaufman Focus Guides)
– groundbreaking photographic field guide
A Peterson Field Guide to Advanced Birding: Birding Challenges and How to Approach Them – equally ground breaking book to the finer details of bird identification