Birders Ontbirds has posting guidelines designed to help readers find birds they would like to see. The guidelines are a set of recommendations about what to post and how to do it. You receive a set of guidelines as an email with the subject line "Welcome to Ontbirds" when you join the list. You can also find our Posting Guidelines" on the Ontario Field Ornithologists website at http://www.ofo.ca/webapp/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide Right off the top you will notice the guidelines lack a list of what to report, this is intentional. The decision about what to report should be with the reporter. Ontbirds does expect reporters to consider their audience (other birders) when preparing a report. The report should be brief and to the point. At a minimum, birds should be uncommon for the local region or time of year. First of the season birds are sometimes reported but keep in mind birds migrate in numbers. If Killdeer is reported once in somewhere in the province you can bank on hundreds if not thousands occurring across the province. Repetitive posts about Killdeer probably won't be well received. As always Ontbirds expects to see posts with subject lines that include a main species and recognizable location. Posts should use complete bird names as found on the provincial checklist http://www.ofo.ca/webapp/site/page/view/checklist.checklist and always include directions to your bird in the message body. -- --- Mark Cranford ONTBIRDS Coordinator Mississauga, ON mark.cranford@ofo.ca 905 279 9576

I would love it if people would put the area of sighting as their first word in the subject line. A lot of us live quite far from some of the sightings and have to open the posts only to find they are irrelevant for us. Thanks! On 2013-02-13, at 9:13 AM, Mark Cranford [Ontbirds] wrote: > Birders > > Ontbirds has posting guidelines designed to help readers find birds they would like to see. The guidelines are a set of recommendations about what to post and how to do it. You receive a set of guidelines as an email with the subject line "Welcome to Ontbirds" when you join the list. You can also find our Posting Guidelines" on the Ontario Field Ornithologists website at http://www.ofo.ca/webapp/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide > > > Right off the top you will notice the guidelines lack a list of what to report, this is intentional. The decision about what to report should be with the reporter. Ontbirds does expect reporters to consider their audience (other birders) when preparing a report. The report should be brief and to the point. At a minimum, birds should be uncommon for the local region or time of year. First of the season birds are sometimes reported but keep in mind birds migrate in numbers. If Killdeer is reported once in somewhere in the province you can bank on hundreds if not thousands occurring across the province. Repetitive posts about Killdeer probably won't be well received. > > As always Ontbirds expects to see posts with subject lines that include a main species and recognizable location. Posts should use complete bird names as found on the provincial checklist http://www.ofo.ca/webapp/site/page/view/checklist.checklist and always include directions to your bird in the message body. > > -- > --- > Mark Cranford > ONTBIRDS Coordinator > Mississauga, ON > mark.cranford@ofo.ca > 905 279 9576 > > _______________________________________________ > ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. > Send bird reports to birdalert@ontbirds.ca > For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/ >