Press Release: Miscellaneous Announcements
Collins Birds – Connecting You With Your Passion
Posted at 12:45PM Thursday 11 Mar 2010
Collins, the leading publisher of bird field guides, has hatched a new website for birdwatchers at http://www.CollinsBirds.com. Global in reach and free to use, it combines definitive species information with interactive features to help casual and experienced bird watchers share knowledge and learn more about the birds around them.Definitive species information The online species pages cover size, habitat, field notes and song for over 5,000 birds. Accompanying every species entry is a distribution guide and illustrations showing all the major plumages (male, female, immature, in flight). Whether you're a keen birdwatcher or simply enjoy watching birds in your garden, CollinsBirds.com is a free and trusted authority for you to turn to online. Community CollinsBirds.com takes birding to another level providing real-time sighting reports on a satellite map, automatic checklist updates, and community voting on mystery bird sightings. Species pages are enhanced by user photos and sighting reports, whilst a buzzing forum is the place to chat and make friends with fellow bird lovers. Alex Gatrell, digital publisher for Collins, said: "Our aim is to open up the world of online bird watching to the casual garden bird watcher, so we invite users to report all sightings, not just rarities. CollinsBirds.com is designed to be very easy to use and as word spreads we look forward to hosting a fantastic birding community which not only solves the eternal question of what's that bird, but also helps to track the distribution and welfare of birds as users upload their sightings on a regular basis. " Prizes There's a prize draw every month for the beautiful Collins Bird Guide second edition, and to celebrate the launch of the site, Collins will also be giving away the only copy to be signed by all three of the authors. To be entered in this special draw, register on Collinsbirds.com and report at least 10 bird sightings by the end of March. Interactive Features Create your own profile page to keep track of the birds you have seen, and to store your photos. Your reported sightings can be organised into categories, such as "in the car", "back garden" and "on holiday". If ticking off check lists is your thing, you'll enjoy the checklist bar charts we create for you, automatically updated whenever you report a new sighting. A shared satellite map displays your own and everyone else's reported sightings, which can be filtered to show only the species you are interested in, or sightings reported within a fixed time period. All bird sighting data (species, time, location and field notes) can be exported for ornithological study. If you want to be notified about sightings of a certain species or of sightings in your local patch without using the map, you can create an alert. These are free and unlimited. For example you might want to know if someone spots a Redwing within five miles of your home, or you might want to know about all the birds spotted within ten miles of your home. Or if you are about to go on holiday you could set up an alert based on that location to whet your appetite. Bird Detective is a great tool to help you identify a mystery bird you've seen. Simply describe in words or upload a photo or sketch, and let the community suggest and vote on what it could be. This is a great feature for beginners, and equally compulsive for experts who can use their knowledge to help out others in the community. If you're feeling sociable there's a buzzing forum for local patch discussions, general birding tips and chat, plus kit reviews. You can also visit the People section of the site to see who else is on CollinsBirds.com – check out their photos and sightings and, if you like, add them to your friends list. This will mean their activity on the site is fed into your notices box so you'll be the first to hear about their amazing sighting or new photo set.
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