Response to Scott Severs and more information about setting up a Colorado eBird portal for FREE.

[Joe Roller]

Scott and Cobirds,

Here is an informed response I received from Ken Ostermiller, volunteer eBird hotspot reviewer for Ohio. I am totally ignorant of the pros and cons of portals, so I asked Ken what value they might hold.

Ken is an experienced and savvy eBirder and has some information about very recent (October 7) news about eBird setting up a Colorado portal at a cost of:

FREE.

Ken is very generous with time devoted to helping birders with things like this. I am not sure who would take the time to set up a portal,

which seems to be a huge task.

I am a huge fan of CObirds and the CFO County Listing website and feel that those excellent resources meet the needs of Colorado birders and visitors.

But Scott describes how a state portal can do other tasks, so this is just FYI.

from Ken Ostermiller:

<<Hi Joe

I looked into setting up a portal for Ohio and found that eBird needed partners to contribute significant funding to pay for the web development of such a portal -- I don't remember the exact amount but it was over $10,000. I didn't see any way that would happen!

So, instead I have worked on a web site describing all the Ohio eBird Hotspots. 
http://ohioebirdhotspots.wikispaces.com/Birding+in+Ohio

Others heard about what I had done in Ohio and I have helped set up similar sites in Missouri, South Dakota, and New Hampshire. 

Unfortunately, the wiki service we have been using, Wikispaces, has recently discontinued offering free wikis for non-educational use. They will be shutting down the free wikis on November 15. That prompted me to discuss with Chris Wood whether we could get Cornell to set up a free wiki based on their higher education connection. Just today they got one set up and I am in the process of moving three states there -- Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota. There is room for more states in the wiki, so if someone in Colorado wants to set up a section on Colorado, we could do that. 

Here's a link to the new wiki -- most of the links in the state areas are not yet active. I'm working on Barry County in Missouri next. 
http://ebirdhotspots.wikispaces.com/

The Ohio web site is getting used by Ohio birders. I'm getting 300-400 unique visitors each day on the site. It is good for tourism as well as birders. 

Another birder has set up a wiki in New York. It is organized quite differently. 
http://ebirding-nys.wikispaces.com/Birding+in+New+York

Probably more than you wanted to know!

>>

Joe Roller,

Denver

[The "Nunn Guy"]

FYI-no they are not free--from Wisconsin eBird administrator " ... the fee is around $1000-1500 per year, which is covered by Wisconsin Society for Ornithology and individual interested donors. The fee itself is perhaps a bit steep but as Marshall notes it's basically partially a contribution to support eBird.

Thanks Gary Lefko, Nunn
http://coloradobirder.ning.com/
Mobile:  http://coloradobirder.ning.com/m