Date: 6/9/26 7:50 pm From: Lynn Erla Beegle (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: Re: Garganey and the Demise of the Listserve
Ah, Kent Fiala was certainly the leading edge of digital birding!
I want to remind birders of one other important way to get the Rare
Bird information: the "Sightings" page of CarolinaBirdClub.org:
https://www.carolinabirdclub.org/sightings/ "“Notable” sightings are submitted to an eBird reviewer for
acceptance. Only those sightings with a check mark by the species name
have so far been accepted; others are pending confirmation."
The "Sightings" page automatically finds and pulls data of any rare
bird detected in NC and SC - whether the bird has been confirmed or
not. Confirmation can take an hour or days, and unconfirmed birds do
NOT show up on Hotspot summaries. THey are listed in date order, and
you can also filter the sightings by county. Checking the "Sightings"
page frequently is the best way to get information quickly.
I recall seeing a report of a pair of American Avocet at Shelley Lake,
which is close by me in Wake County. I was stuck at work when I saw it
listed on the Sightings page. I informed my students that I had a
"birding emergency" and Extra Help was canceled at 1 today. For my
lunch hour, I drove to Shelley and found the Avocets - I had the scope
in my car, but, I had to jog quite a ways in a skirt and heels!
https://ebird.org/checklist/S94087598 So keep the "Sightings" page of CarolinaBirdClub on Your Favorites for
your web browser!
Lynn Erla Beegle
Raleigh North Carolina
On Tue, Jun 9, 2026 at 10:01 PM Kent Fiala <carolinabirds...> wrote:
>
> I claim to be the very first Carolina birder to post an observation from the field. Here is that message; it was sent from a Palm device, I think my trusty Palm Tungsten T3, tethered via USB cable to my flip phone. This was 3 years before the first iPhone.
>
> To: "Carolinabirds" <carolinabirds...>
> Subject: Iceland Gull
> From: "Kent Fiala" <fiala...>
> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 8:03:00 -0500
>
> I'm at the Farrington bridge now; the Iceland Gull is still present. It took me a little bit longer than Steve's 10 seconds to find it; maybe twice as long. It really stands out among the Ring-bills.
>
> --
> Kent Fiala
> via wireless
>
>
>
> On 6/9/2026 7:41 PM, ncsealord (via carolinabirds Mailing List) wrote:
>
> Some early adopters of technology (Kent Fiala, I am looking at you) started to send e-mail from the actual location of the bird
