Posts Tagged ‘birding’

Share your sightings via Text or Email! April 21st, 2009

For the first time ever (as far as we know) you can submit a sighting directly from the field with any cell phone with text messaging capabilities! You can submit a sighting via text message and share it with the rest of the ChirpTracker community, automatically creating a map of where your sighting is located and the species you saw!

In order to take advantage of the new texting feature, you will need to click the “Edit My Profile” link in the left navigation and then click the “Mobile” tab (http://chirptracker.com/account/mobile). Here you can see the email address generated for you, while having the ability to customize your pin number in your email address to something you can easily remember. You can use your unique address to email or text your sightings and updates directly into your ChirpTracker account. Capture your sightings as you see them and share them instantly with other community members, streamlining the ability to share sightings instantly as never before.

In order to post a sighting via text or email, you will need to follow the sightings format. The format is as follows:

S "Species Name" L "Location" Followed by your message

In the near future, when you come in from the field and log into ChirpTracker, you will be able to export your sightings from that day into many formats, including full support for eBird! So while you are out in the field recording and sending your sightings to ChirpTracker, at the end of the day you’ll be able to share a compiled list with other applications and people!

If you aren’t already a member of ChirpTracker, you can request an invite to the private beta by going to chirptracker.com.

Good Birding!

ChirpChatter.com Sneak Peek! December 17th, 2008

ChirpChatter originally started out as being a feature of ChirpTracker, but after some discussion with our team and gathering feedback from birders, we decided to build a full fledged (pun intended) app out of it, thus ChirpChatter.com was born. There are many microblogging sites out there, the most famous of course being Twitter. We (as well as many other birders) recognized that this format for sharing information could be excellent for birders to report sightings and connect the birding community. Many birders are already starting to report their sightings on Twitter, however Twitter is quite generalized and not targeted to a specific niche. This is where ChirpChatter comes in. We have basically created a “Twitter for birders”. We have taken the great parts about Twitter and molded our own “birder” version by adding valuable features to make ChirpChatter work for you, the birder and user.

We’re planning on releasing a private beta to a select few very shortly to help give us a first impression on how you, the user is going to react to it. We have some users in mind to ask to help test, but if you just can’t wait to get your hands on ChirpChatter, contact us and we’ll see what we can do. We’re not going to spill the beans on all of our shiny features… yet, but we might tell a few individuals some secrets!

ChirpChatter Home Preview

Oh… and yes, we ARE going to give you Twitter support :) . This means that you don’t have to leave all your Twittering friends behind! We have plans to link your ChirpChatter account with your Facebook account too if you want! (You will have the option to turn on/off these settings as you like!)

ChirpChatter Home Preview

If you have any thoughts, suggestions, or just want to say hi, we would love to hear from you (Especially if you are a birder)! You can contact us or post in the comments. Any feedback you can give us will make a better experience for everyone.

Hunt for the World’s Rarest Bird December 6th, 2008

We read a lot of birding news from a variety of sources each week. However, one article stood out to us this morning. Bird watchers are on the search for what is believed to be the world’s rarest bird species, the Slender-Billed Curlew. 

“Birdwatchers from Britain to Asia are being asked to look out for a species whose breeding grounds have never been found, but are thought to be in some of the world’s remotest places – the steppes of Kazakhstan and the marshes of western Siberia. In winter, the bird migrates south-westward through the Middle East to the Mediterranean basin, where it has been seen as far west as Morocco.

~Michael McCarthey – The Independent”

Please read the full article. We hope you find it as fascinating as we have. If anyone has added the Slender-Billed Curlew to their life list, we want to hear from you ASAP!

High Definition Birding Videos November 7th, 2008

ChirpTracker has recently launched a channel with video-sharing website, Vimeo. While we do have an account on YouTube, Vimeo stands apart in the fact that full HD quality videos are available for sharing and viewing. For those of you who spend a lot of time out in the field, you know how important it is to see and recognize details at a quick glance. One of our team members, Matt, has recently acquired a new DSLR camera that offers the ability to capture video up to 720p. Head over to our Vimeo page to see what we have so far! We are also featuring birding videos from other birding members with accounts on Vimeo. So if you have some from your personal collection that you’d like to share, sign up with Vimeo (It’s free) and send us a message, we would love to show everyone your videos!

P.S. Here is a sample video, enjoy!