How to report a bird sighting
The quickest way to report a Devon bird sighting is to contact Steve Waite, the Devon Bird Recorder by emailing him at recorder@devonbirds.org — should Steve ever step down then presumably this email address will still work for whoever takes on the role!
There is more information available on the Devon Birds website including PDF/XLS files for reporting, and some extra information on reporting a rare bird sighting.
Don’t worry about it
Let’s just say that the bird sighting takes place in your back garden. If you report it, then you are going to have a million birding folks descend upon your house, right?
Not exactly. Unless you have a really, really rare bird sighting then it’s unlikely to have people pitching their tents outside your house. You may have some local interest if it’s a particularly interesting bird, but in any case birding guys are a friendly bunch so you don’t need to worry.
If you really don’t want to risk it, tell the bird recorder that you would rather not make the information public, and they won’t. Remember, their main interest is in ensuring that bird numbers don’t dwindle — the last thing they want is to scare them away, or even worse, prevent breeding.
This information goes for bird sightings outside of Devon too of course — you can find a list of county recorders on the BTO website.