Chequamegon Bird Club Blog

This blog is intended for usage by CBC members or others who have been approved for posting to the CBC blog.  As with most blogs, this one is intended to be a forum for users to express their ideas, opinions, observations and other musings as they relate to bird and or nature subjects.

Blog messages are posted with the most recent blog items on top and are available for anyone to read.  Messages are also organized by category or archived by the month the message was posted.  Only writers with posting privileges can write or post comments to this blog.

The first step to writing a new blog entry is to Log In.  The link to logging in is in the menu along the right side of the page under the META heading.  A user name and password is required to log in.

After successfully logging in, the two main areas that bloggers will be using are the “WRITE” and “MANAGE” areas.  Generally you will be “writing” a new “post” - which is a normal blog message.

Writing  a new post consists of entering a TITLE for your post, entering the body of the blog message, selecting an appropriate category for the message, and Saving the message.  Note that after a message is Saved, it will not show up on the blog until it is actually “Published”.  The Save option gives you the opportunity to start working on a blog message and saving it for later retrieval, but not actually posting/publishing it on the public blog until you have completed it and clicked on the “Publish” button.

We have created some “categories” that we think will meet most of the CBC bloggers needs, but we can add additional ones if desired.

The other option you will be using regularly is the MANAGE option.  In this area you can manage YOUR posts (editing and deleting) as well as managing any images YOU have uploaded to the Media Library.

Feel free to explore other areas of the blog.  You might want to experiment with some of the formatting options that are available through the blog editor.  You are welcome to include images with your blog postings, but please size down the images before uploading them.  Probably a width of 300 pixels is sufficient for most blog postings (and 72 ppi is all that’s necessary for web publishing).

If there are other points of confusion that you come across when using this blog, feel free to ask and I’ll write instructions or clarifications to this message.

Have fun and feel free to show your creative side.  That is what blogs are for.

Greg

P.S.  Since the blog apparently doesn’t indicate which author posted them message.  I guess we’d better sign at least our first name (unless you prefer to be anonomyous)

Male Henslow Sparrow Singing

I guess I’ll start out this “nature musings and poetry” category with a quick post on my thoughts on nature observations in general and bird watching specifically.

While I’ve spent countless hours observing nature from inside cramped blinds during my wildlife photography career and participating for years in organized bird counts and surveys, I rarely have gone “birding” just for the sake of birding.  I don’t keep a “life list” and would probably never drive more than just a few miles just to see a rare or unusual bird (although photographing one might be a different story).

Birding and birding field trips, for me, are more a time to get together with CBC members and enjoy nature while at the same time enjoying the camaraderie, companionship and friendship.  While we nearly always keep a list of the birds we see, for me the enjoyment in “birding” comes from the interaction between friends - the stories, the informational exchanges and most of all, the good-natured kidding and teasing that goes on on all of our outings.

For my entire life, I have loved spending time outdoors - often on my own.  But it is the time spent sharing Nature with friends and family and the fond memories of these outings that are “what birding means to me”.