Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Welcome to the South Burnett

I came to blogging as a rather reluctant convert. Fay and I were in the throes of planning our U.K. birding and, incidentally, visiting kith and kin trip for September 2010; we leave on Thursday 2 September. I came across the West Midlands birding blogs and joined in as “Staffordshire Stray” to help get a “feel” for our former stomping grounds. I haven’t been there since 1999; Fay managed a brief non-birding trip in 2005.

The ploy worked, albeit with a few reservations.

Yet, it always struck me as rather incongruous. There I was, on a U.K. West Midlands blog spot giving out odds and sods about my birding experiences in the South Burnett region of Queensland. No one appeared to object but I suspect that was more to do with the proposed return to the West Midlands than with the content of my blogs.

Nevertheless, one aspect of the West Midlands site that did appeal was the dissemination of local birding news – as Richard Powell so succinctly puts it on his blog, “Local Birding for local People.” It planted the germ of an idea, why not move across to blogging about my own local patch?

I remain a doubtful convert. I continue to develop my website, BIRDS & BIRDING IN THE SOUTH BURNETT and have, in the past, always enjoyed websites. Not that the two, the blog and the website, are totally incompatible. The respective foci differ.

Thus, here I will present the occasional post on the more informal aspects of our personal birding in the South Burnett area [no doubt with the sporadic reference to the local wines].