Hi Everyone, I have read a few newspaper articles/TV news recently on rare bird sightings that get he twitchers flocking (pardon the pun) in their droves to see the bird. But by the time I see these the event is over. Does anyone know of any sites that you can follow where these are reported?

Hi Rodney
I get daily feeds from birding-aus and also from e-bird . Both of these are easy to set up for rare bird sightings and one can restrict reports to a particular state and by other parameters.

The more "with it" birders use several Facebook groups. I have been on pelagics where birders were posting to Facebook before we even got off the boat! I'm sure someone else can give you more info on these, but you need to be on Facebook (which I am not).

Jill

I think that Jill was referring to the Facebook page called Australian Twitchers and after the last episode regarding the Tufted Duck, I swore off that site forever.
Constant updates, every 5-10mins at times is a complete overload of the senses. Seems to be a couple of main culprits who continually go out of their way to gain publicity and notoriety.
If I hadn't made the decision to get down early and have a look, I certainly wouldn't have entertained the idea of attending the circus that ensued later on in the saga.
I'm now of the opinion that we have plenty of local birds available without me throwing good money at a stupid venture of travelling halfway across the continent to get some fairly 'casual' views of a bird that can only been seen let alone identified at 600 metres through a high powered spotting scope. . .
Other's opinions may vary. . .
Bruce

Thanks for the responses. I don't see myself jumping on a plane and flying to the other side of Oz (yet) but if something were to show up in the normal radius I think it would be fun to go for the opportunity. Since I already use ebird a lot putting all my walks on it I will follow up the alerts on that in particular. Thanks.