birding...

For those of you who don`t already know there are lots of birding related discussion groups around the world. If you use e-mail and want to stay in touch joining such a group is fun, informative and passionate as at times some of your fellows will get hot under the collar. Personally I love it and feel deprived if I don`t take part in the debates every now and then. My love of the mailing lists was amply illustrated by a remark I made to my wife whilst birding in Australia. Look I said pointing toward an emu shepherding his young across the plain its an E-mail! Some of the listings below are portals to chat rooms the difference here is that you stay on line and type one to one messages to have a conversation.

Love `em or hate `em there is always something going on and they are a great way of contacting people all over the world if you need help with research, an environmental campaign or just to plan your next overseas birding trip.

Geographical area groups are listed on their individual country or state pages [or in the UK county pages] etc. and familly pages will [when I publish those pages] carry groups relevant to particular species or bird famillies. In order to become part of the group you have to subscribe; the way you do this may differ with different groups. The addresses and methods of subscribing are listed below. So the groups below are ones which relate either to interest areas not confined by species or geography, or that are for areas which do not have a page - like three US states together, or several EEC countries together.

This information is being updated as often as possible but, needless to say, we at Fat Birder would like to know of any additions, please to let us know. Each of the mailing lists below consists of:

1. The list name and a short explanation of what it is all about.
2. The e-mail address of the list and where you need to send the message saying you want to subscribe.
3. The third line is the message you need to send in order to subscribe. Where it says Your Name, type in your own name, without quotation marks. Do not put any message in the subject line of your e-mail. The only information your need is the message, in the body of the e-mail. Some subscription requests are case sensitive: that is, they require careful reproduction of capital letters or lowercase letters in the subscription message.

These days forums are as popular as mailing groups - whereby you can join in numerous threads on generalist sites or much more specific discussions on more specialist forums... everything from Seabirds to hummingbirds...