Twitter latest................................................................Phil Whittaker

SOG still a tweet, tweet, tweeting

We have been running a Twitter site for two years and it is continuing to be a useful medium for members and others who wish to rapidly access bird information and communicate news about all matters conservation and birding.

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We now have 525 followers (quite a small number for an organisation such as ours) and we are following well over a thousand tweeters. Our contacts have continued to grow and there is a constantly updated stream of informative tweets from mainstream organisations such as BTO, Natural England, RSPB and SWT. The ‘wit and witticisms’ continue to amuse and these run alongside serious comment from a wide range of local and national birders and conservationists; as well as a few, ‘just interested’ followers. It is difficult to estimate how many members we have who contribute to our site, as some followers are anonymous except for their twitter tag, but I suspect there are only a few of our 400+ members, which does limit successful and immediate communication of issues affecting our membership. As an active form of lobbying Twitter can be a very powerful force, but only if members are actively engaged in lobbying by tweeting and retweeting petitions and expressing their concerns directly to the powers that be. Twitter has given everybody the opportunity to respond easily and directly and recent campaigns against issues such as birds of prey persecution and Turtle Dove shooting in Morocco have had some success, but many of our members may not have been aware of these.

An important Twitter development over the past year has been the advent of totally free bird information services, formed by groups of birders who share information using tweets. In the north of the county it has been used successfully as a rare bird alert between individual birders for some time. I have benefitted and contributed to sharing ‘local patch’ bird news in the Gipping Valley; but this is very focussed in terms of locality and in my opinion is in no way a substitute for Suffolk BINS. It would entail a great deal of time and a constant effort to replicate this excellent countywide service.

However, on the national scene, tweeters like Rare Bird News are offering free Twitter updates of national rarity sightings that are very useful for those who don’t wish (or can’t afford) to buy an expensive pager or SIMs phone alerts from bird alert providers. I’ve used it successfully myself on a number of occasions to report in sightings when out of Suffolk, and to receive information and pass them on to other Twitter users. It’s a bit like back to Nancy’s Café, Cley (but online) for those of us old enough to remember that quaint old system of accessing bird news! Obviously, having mobile access to Twitter when out and about is a big advantage for sending and receiving bird news, or even ‘up-to-the-minute’ local traffic or general news items. A live Twitter feed will soon be available on our webpage @sogonline.org.uk As a method of communication Twitter is still in its infancy and it is constantly developing and improving, mainly through the efforts of the Twitter community itself. I use it as an enhancement to my birding, supplemented by a whole range of other social media such as blogs websites.

Join Twitter at @suffolkbirds1 - it’s all free!

One position is already vacant and others will be forthcoming. So, if you want to be a more active member of SOG and part of the team taking the Group forward, then contact Roy Marsh on 01473 430978