FOR Bruce Ross, using the Internet was something he discovered late in life, but he found he was a dab hand at it.

Mr Ross's website, for Darlington and Spennymoor Budgerigar Society, has been named Pick of the Month for March by The Northern Echo's web hosting service, Communigate.

The site was deemed attractive and informative, and provides details on club meetings, shows, other local societies and information for keepers regarding bird flu.

To mark the achievement, Mr Ross was given a digital camera, courtesy of Sales and Marketing Direct, of Darlington.

Mr Ross said he was delighted with the accolade for his site, which he set up to attract younger members to the society. He said: "I thought the way to do this would be get a site on the Internet, where the young people seem to excel. In a couple of weeks, we have had nearly 300 hits, it's amazing."

Karen Maughan, Communigate's community web editor, said she chose the site because of its quality and because it was an unusual subject.

She said: "I used to know lots of people with aviaries when I was growing up, and I had not realised that it is still a very popular hobby."

The club's site is at www.communigate.co.uk/ne/ darlingtonspennymoor budgerigarclub

The Communigate service is supported by Northumbria University. The team also runs workshops on their IT bus to help people set up websites.

The bus is sponsored by Barclays, and the workshops are funded by communications partner Orange.

For more details, log on to www.communigate.co.uk/ne or call Ms Maughan on (01325) 505270.