Michael Bell, the editor of the "From the Field" column, which is a regular feature in The Oriole, and I have been working together to make his column available on the GOS web site after it has been published in The Oriole.

For those not familiar with it, "From the Field" is basically a seasonal summary of the more interesting birds observed in Georgia, sort of along the same lines of the American Birding Association's "North American Birds" or Terry Moore's heroic monthly effort for the "Wingbars," Atlanta Audubon Society's newsletter. The URL is as follows:

http://www.gos.org/field/field.html

There is in fact a lot of overlap with Terry's monthly column, since Terry and Michael share a lot of information, much of which is provided by the compilation efforts of Jeff Sewell via the Statewide RBA. It is up to the discretion of each editor to decide what is interesting, so there are differences between Terry's and Michael's columns. Terry's column is more timely due to publication intervals, while Michael has more time to ensure that the really rare stuff has been accepted by, or at least submitted to, the GOS Checklist and Records Committee.

Terry's column (entitled "Field Notes") is available on a monthly basis on the Atlanta Audubon Society web site at the following URL:

http://www.atlantaaudubon.org/pages/fieldnotes.htm

The new GOS web site feature is basically Michael's column with photos of the birds that he mentions. Many of these photos are less than average, but I liked the idea of the added realism of photos of the actual birds mentioned in the column.

If you see any birds in any of the columns that I do not have photos for that you do, please consider donating them to these pages. The only stipulation is that they have to be photos of the species mentioned, within the date range (doesn't have to be the exact date), and in the location mentioned (within reason)...in other words, the actual bird(s), if possible. As you can see from my photos, they do not have to be anything special, but they should be somewhat clear and diagnostic when scanned and cropped for a smallish image size. If you would like to help, you can either send me copies of the photos or slides (email me for my snail-mail address so that I know they are coming) and I will scan and return them, or you can email me the scan in jpeg (.jpg) format. Send scans to jflynn@america.net.

The first column that Michael did was Winter 1998-1999, and that is the only one that I have completed. The URL is:

http://www.gos.org/field/1998winter.html

I am working on the others (up until 1999-2000, which was the last published column), but I have to dig pretty far into my archives to fetch photos of some of these birds.

Take care. -- Jim Flynn Cumming, GA jflynn@america.net ******************************* Georgia Ornithological Society: http://www.gos.org/index.html *******************************