I've been anxious to announce this for a couple of months! And since the word is already out there in a few places, it's time to open the curtains and get on with the show.
We're launching a new mode of sharing bird content here at Bird Watcher's Digest, it's a podcast, called This Birding Life.
"Dude, What's a podcast?" you may well ask...
Here's how the wikiheads at Wikipedia define 'podcast'
A podcast is a media file which is distributed over the Internet using syndicationfeeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers.[1] Like 'radio', it can mean both the content and the method of syndication. The latter may also be termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. The term "podcast" is a portmanteau of the name of Apple's portable music player, the iPod, and broadcast; a pod refers to a container of some sort and the idea of broadcasting to a container or pod correctly describes the process of podcasting.There are currently six episodes of This Birding Life (TBL for short) available for your listening pleasure. Among the already released episodes are a reading from Letters from Eden by Julie Zickefoose, a reading by Scott Weidensaul from Return to Wild America, a couple of interviews with Jeff Gordon about birding technology, and a recording from a keynote presentation I did called "The Perils and Pitfalls of Birding."
A seventh episode is "in the can" and should be available soon. I can't promise I'll do a podcast every week, but I'll try to keep them coming as regularly as possible. This is not only new technology and it's a new medium for content delivery so I (along with my colleagues here at BWD) am feeling my way along into the future.
New episodes of This Birding Life will be available for free download on the BWD website. The complete podcast is also available for free in the iTunes Store. Just do a search for This Birding Life. It's also listed here on PodcastDirectory.com
The Podcast Central section of the BWD website is sponsored by the Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers of the Peterson Field Guide series as well as the Kaufman Field Guide series. Special thanks to our friends at Houghton Mifflin for their generous support.
I seem to have been building up to this podcasting thing for a while. I love talking (especially to other bird watchers about birds). I enjoy the recording/creation of content process. And Yes, I love technology (but not as much as you, you see!) [That's a Napoleon Dynamite reference for my kids]So it's my fondest hope that you'll dig what you hear (and, eventually, see) with This Birding Life. Digital content will never take the place of actually watching birds, but it might help us pass the hours between birding trips a little more easily.
6 comments:
Love it already. I stumbled upon it on iTunes this weekend. Great stuff!
For the uninitiated, that's BOTB holding the mic for Denver Holt, who is channeling a displaying male short-eared owl (hoo hooo hoo hoo!) at the Ohio Ornithological Society's Owl Symposium, held at Hueston Woods near Oxford, Ohio, in February 2007. Many of the women in the audience answered this thrilling display with approving hoots. And you thought birders were stodgy.
I can't think of a medium that's better suited to using all your many talents, BOTB. Any guitar intros you hear were created by the podcaster.
What a great idea! I'm hunkering down to listen now...
Why are you not wearing your black frame glasses on the logo?
Well this is one Luddite that's going to have to figure out how to download pod casts.
RR
Bill of the Birds only started wearing his black frame glasses in March of 2006. Any true fan would know that.
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