Brome Bird News is a weekly video program well into its second season. The seven to ten-minute broadcast goes out over the Internet, and it is shot right here in the Town of Brome Lake.
The programs are researched and presented by Tatsiana Thomson, and shot by her husband, Rugge Thomson, a professional cameraman and video editor who operates out of his Knowlton studio. “We try to keep people up to date with what’s going on in the world of birds. We always start off with bird headlines from around the world,” says Ms. Thomson, who also runs the web page for the Knowlton-based Brome Bird Care Inc., makers of the squirrel buster bird feeders.
“BIRDS WITH BIGGER BRAINS HAVE A BETTER CHANCE OF SURVIVING CLIMATE CHANGE.”
This particular week the headlines included a story about the state of Michigan forcing telecom companies to put flashing lights on towers to avoid bird collisions; there was also a story about birds with bigger brains having a better chance of surviving climate change.
If there are bird species in danger, Brome Bird News focuses on them.
“Right now it is the Purple Martin. In the last little while the Blue Bird has been brought back because people put out special Blue Bird boxes so they could breed. It was a major intervention,” says Ms. Thomson.
A recent program on the Purple Martin received the largest number of hits on the Internet for the broadcast. The audience is in the United States and Canada, and it is made up of a solid demographic of women over 50.
“Eighty per cent of people who feed birds are educated women over 50 so that is the bulk of our audience,” says Ms. Thomson.
Rugge Thomson shoots and edits the pieces.
“We write it on Thursday, shoot it on Friday, edit on Monday and put it up on line on Tuesday,” says Mr. Thomson.
Every week there is a segment by Dr. David Bird (yes, that’s his real name) a professor of Ornithology – the study of birds – at McGill University in Montreal, as well as data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the United States.
To see the program: bromebirdnews.com