Nature Blog Network

Eddie “Birdfreak” Callaway and Jennifer “Veery” Outcalt are the brother-sister blogging team behind the Birdfreak blog. In the summer of 2006 they came up with the idea of creating a website to promote birding and bird conservation. They struggled to find a memorable name that wasn’t taken already. Although they got into blogging a bit “late” (their word), they are now using their degrees (Eddie’s in Marketing and Jennie’s in Geography with an emphasis on habitat restoration) to promote birding and bird conservation.

To contact the team, stop by the blog or use any of these channels:

• Email: birdfreak[at]birdfreak[dot]com
• Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdfreak/
• Twitter: @birdfreak
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/eddie.callaway
• AIM: birdfreakmac

Why do you blog?
We started blogging because we had been creating static websites, and blogs were clearly a better route to go. The ability to focus more time on writing and creating and less on coding was the main advantage to moving to a blog. Of course, to create a unique style and add functionality to your blog, you do need to learn a bit of coding.

Our passion for blogging is 100% driven by our love of birds and our desire to see more land conserved for birds and other animals. While we would love to be able to do this full time, we did not create Birdfreak.com with the idea of getting rich. Thus, our rewards have been even greater than expected (including a trip to Rhode Island with Swarovski, dozens of free books and other products, free hotel nights, and other such benefits.)

Our advice to anyone wanting to start his or her own blog is: 1) get started now and 2) focus on what you love first and evolve as you grow.

What do you like most and least about blogging?
The best thing about blogging is the connections we’ve gained. It is incredibly rewarding to have people from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology or the American Birding Association, as well as world famous birders, comment about the site. What we like least about blogging is the proofreading. After a post is written and the links and photos are added in it can be a pain to find a typo or choppy sentence. Also, sometimes the feeling of obligation to write clever and unique posts can be a bit overwhelming.

Has blogging changed how you think about nature?
Blogging has improved our outlook on nature quite a bit. Each time we go out hiking or photographing we are constantly looking for unique and fun stuff to write about. Reading articles about conservation or discussing conservation issues with other birders always makes us think a bit deeper.

Writing on a blog is a lot different from other writing but is definitely not any easier. It forces you to get to the point faster, write lean, clean sentences, and make the information easily scanned and readable.

Also, we make every effort possible to stay positive with our writing. There are a lot of negative stories about habitat being destroyed but we like to always remain on the side of the success stories. It isn’t that we ignore bad environmental decisions but we feel that showing the ways we can combat them successfully will always win out in the end.

How do you promote your blog and attract readers?
We’ve successfully used Flickr by making all our photos freely available for others to use on their sites with attribution and a link. We also use Twitter and Facebook to a lesser degree. StumbleUpon has been effective as well. Making our stuff search engine friendly (also called search engine optimization or SEO) is also a great way to gain focused traffic.

We started Bird Photography Weekly after seeing how successful Skywatch Friday was and since then it has become one of our biggest sources of traffic and buzz. We’re still working on ways to improve its reach but the level of contribution has been strong since the start.

Is there a story behind the name of your blog?
Back in 2006 we wanted a cool, short name that would work as the domain name. We were thinking about creating a birding-marketing newsletter called Feathers but that name was taken. So Birdfreak was somewhat of an accident, but we fell in love with it because it fits perfectly. We aren’t hardcore listers or expert ornithologists, but we have a freakish love for conserved habitat full of beautiful birds.

Side note: our license plates read: BIRDFRK and VEERY which is pretty cool to get in a state of almost 13 million people.

What’s it like working on a blog with a close family member?
It is quite fun working together as a brother-sister team. We both lived in Rockford when we started, so we could go birding together and share thoughts and equipment easily. Of course, like any siblings, we’d have disagreements but the overall direction of the site has naturally progressed.

It was also a bit hard to write about personal trips and events, and make the blog essentially still have one voice. We still struggle with this - more so now because Jennie is working in Jefferson City, Missouri, for the summer - but we are able to work it out.

Do you feel you’re part of a community with other nature bloggers?
We would like to think we’re part of the community. Our goal was never to become the most popular but rather one of the most effective and evocative conservation blogs on the web.

We’ve met a lot of amazing people through our blog (and their blogs) some of which would definitely be called friends. The nature blog community has grown so much that it is difficult to find the time to read everyone’s blogs, twitter, update Facebook, and manage email, and still concentrate on our own writing. Blogging has quickly become a second (non-paying) job.

Any words of wisdom for new nature bloggers?

1) Plan to be in it for the long haul – blogging is only effective over time

2) Write like crazy! – don’t worry too much about how perfect your wording is so long as you are being honest, transparent, and let your personal voice shine.

3) Use photos effectively – adding one or two photos to a post (even a scenery shot) make the posts many times more readable.

4) Use shorter sentences, specific wording, lists, etc. (check out http://copyblogger.com
for great tips on writing well on a blog)

5) Link out to other blogs

Anything else you’d like me to ask you, or that you’d like to volunteer without being asked?
We’d like to thank the Nature Blog Network for featuring us. The more exposure all nature bloggers can get, the stronger our voices become and eventually conservation will reach a tipping point.

Also, while we can’t divulge too many details yet, we are working on a conservation-marketing book that will focus on ways to use blogging, social networking, bird-of-mouth, etc. to increase conservation. We feel that marketing is the single best way to improve the environment – creating the desire for people to want to protect land not because of some government mandate or some group telling them to.

We also have plans to focus more heavily on citizen science and getting kids back into nature. Every kid on the planet is born with a desire to be outside, to investigate and discover the awesomeness of nature. The fact that this gets lost as gets get older is depressing and one of the biggest causes for conservation failure.

Thank you, Eddie and Jennie.

To read more by the Birdfreak team, visit their Downloads page, which has links to three items in PDF format.

1. Birdfreak Guide to Taking Kids Birding – Ages 6 to 12
2. Birdfreak Guide for Teen Birders – Ages 13 to 19
3. Why We Need Bird Conservation

or check out these posts:

• Musings from a young bird conservationist
• Smitten with bitterns

Eddie and Jennie, thank you both for joining us today!