If you are going to the Biggest Week in American Birding, you will want to be sure that you are following @BiggestWeek on Twitter. Not only will you get great information about the festival and related events, you will get real time updates on where to find birds before and during the festival.
Last year, my friend had the tweets going straight to her phone. If we were close enough, we would go finding the bird that was just tweeted. Pretty sweet, huh? It’s not hard to set up – and best of all, you don’t even need a smart phone! Here is how you do it:
- First, log onto Twitter from a computer and open your Settings. On the sidebar to the left, click on Mobile.
- Here, you want to activate twitter messaging by entering your mobile phone number in the text box.
- Click Activate and you will see the following screen:
Follow the directions by texting GO to 40404 – remember normal text messaging carrier fees may apply, but it is otherwise free. - Once your phone is activated, you can customize your settings. You may want to remove everything that you do not want to receive tweets about. The only one you need checked for the purposes of having the @BiggestWeek tweets sent to your phone is Tweets from people you’ve enabled for mobile notifications.
- After you save your settings go to the BiggestWeek’s page on twitter twitter.com/biggestweek. If you are not already following @BiggestWeek, press the follow button. To have their tweets sent to your phone click on the icon to the right of the following button and select Turn on mobile notifications.
And you are set! Here is a sampling of the tweets you may receive during the festival:
Tweets from Magee Marsh boardwalk complete with exact location of great birds.
Tweets from around other locations in the area and reminders of festival activities and social events.
And when a really good bird is spotted, up-to-date information on where it is located.
These tweets will be sent out by festival coordinators and guides who are spread out all over Magee Marsh and surrounding areas. It’s a great way to stay informed – and don’t forget to check in ahead of time to see news about the greatest Warbler event in the country!
Oh, and while your at it, how about also adding me to your twitter feed – @mydigitalmind. You don’t need my texts going to your phone, but you will like the stuff I post!
Edit: And speaking of getting tweets to your phone, an Eastern Meadowlark just sung to me (that is my text message sound) and I received my first tweet from @BiggestWeek, featuring this very post!
An Alternative to Texts
Some people have asked about an alternative way to get notified of Tweets from the Biggest Week. Another way to stay up-to-date is to subscribe to the @BiggestWeek Twitter RSS feed. Use your favorite RSS reader and customize it to your liking (like receiving emails).