Do you write about a nearby birding festival for local media?

Birding festivals do more than bring birders together for field trips and camaraderies. The events infuse the local economy with dollars spent on lodging, food and often gasoline. Festivals also give birders a chance to tout this hobby/sport/lifestyle to the mainstream public.


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The Jamestown Sun ran two articles yesterday that mention the Potholes & Prairie Birding Festival, occurring now. Those articles (one is hidden by a registration screen) were collected into a Google news alert and disseminated to anyone who registered for alerts with pertinent keywords -- like "bird" and "birding" -- so the potential eyeballs on those articles extends beyond the Sun's readership.

Does a festival occur near you? Do you contact the local newspaper and television stations to ask if they received word of the event? Do you offer to help with information provided by the festival organizers? In essence, are you a birding ambassador?