There have been a steadily increasing number of spammers joining the forum for some reason.
For the past few months I was maybe deleting one or two spam accounts a week (and those seemed to have actual people behind them). But in past 3-4 days I've been deleting 10-20 accounts per day, with hundreds of posts attached to them (fortunetly, when you delete a user, it can choose to auto-remove all of their posts!). - So clearly some russian bot has found a way to easily circumvent the CAPTCHA and short bird/photography-related questioniare I've put in place for for new user registration.
I think I may have to instatute manual approval for new users. Which is unforunate, because it means that legitamate birders who may finally decide to join up because they want to respond to a post, will have to wait a few days.