Are you a birder or interested in birding in Chautauqua County or neighboring areas like Warren and Cattaraugus Counties? RTPI assists in moderating and managing the Chautauqua County Birds email list serv and we would love for you to sign up! Visit this page to see the Google group and join the list serv. If you need to be manually added or sent an invitation please email list owner Gale VerHague at verhague@fredonia.edu or RTPI’s Conservation & Outreach Coordinator Scott Kruitbosch at skruitbosch@rtpi.org.
The Chautauqua County Birds email list rules include the following:
*Chautauqua County Birds encourages the open discussion of bird sightings, conservation issues, birding events, places to find birds and rare bird alerts in the county and neighboring areas in the Southern Tier and Northwest Pennsylvania.
*This is a family-oriented list open to all ages. Proper language and behavior is expected, and personal disagreements should be handled off of the list.
*The precise locations of certain birds should not be posted for the good of the bird. This includes day-roosting owls (Eastern Screech, Great Horned, Barn, Barred, Long-eared and Northern Saw-whet), birds on sensitive habitat or private property inaccessible to the general public, nest locations of species sensitive to disturbance and potentially more. Remember to consider the bird’s welfare first and foremost and that this is an open and public forum that can be viewed by anyone including those not subscribed to it.
*All messages should include basic geographic information about the bird(s) you’re posting, and all emails should be signed with at least your name and town. More information can be found in the suggested reporting guidelines and format section. Message subjects should include the bird(s) and town or location whenever possible.
*This is a text-only list. File attachments are not permitted. If you wish to share pictures or video pertaining to relevant list topics please include appropriate web links.
Suggested Reporting Guidelines & Format:
Please remember to include Who, When, Where and What in posting to Chautauqua County Birds. Not all subscribers or readers will know what town a certain street is in, the nickname of a birding hotspot, and so forth. Capitalizing rare and uncommon birds such as HARLEQUIN DUCK or EVENING GROSBEAK in the subject and the body is helpful to those quickly scanning the list for oddities. Capitalizing the first letter of all bird names helps call attention to them, especially in lengthy posts.
This is an example of the format Chautauqua County Birds would like used whenever possible when reporting bird sightings:
From Scott Kruitbosch:
11/20/13 with Twan Leenders – Jamestown, Roger Tory Peterson Institute — 1 SANDHILL CRANE flying over the property heading to the west around 1:50PM.
or
From Scott Kruitbosch:
12/15/13 – Jamestown, Chautauqua County Airport — 1 SNOWY OWL continuing as seen during our Christmas Bird Count when I drove through the area midday. When I saw it the bird was in the middle of the grasslands within the airport fence on Girts Rd. There was also 1 Rough-legged Hawk that flew off to the north. Other birds seen during the afternoon snow included 1 Red-tailed Hawk, 5 Blue Jay, 8 American Crow and 2 Black-capped Chickadee.
We hope to see you posting soon!
