List keeping - What do you use?

[Dave B Smith]

There have been some interesting threads on lists. What I haven't seen much on are the details of how we "keep" our lists.

Mine is pretty simple and its home made. I have a Data base (Access) that has an AOU Checklist table included. Then I keep a table for all locations visited and a third table for all my "sightings". Based on that info, I can generate life lists, area lists or trip lists.

I know lots of folks use printed checklists.

So, how many are still keeping just their handwritten trip notes, how many use printed checklists, and how many use Computer Programs (and what programs do you like)?

One of the things I'm looking for is a good electronic index for a Birds of the World checklist. Can anyone recommend one? Is it a free download or where can it be purchased?

[SteveClark]

I have my records (about 18,000) in a Lotus Approach database. They are linked by common name to the Sibley and Monroe list (~9,000) species. I can generate lists for each year, Australia, World and each Australian state. I can also search by species, location etc and can tell you that the Little Wattlebird I saw in the garden here at work yesterday was only the second record in 21 years and the first was in 1987.

Recently I modified the S&M table to include fields for the field guides I own (Australia, Europe, China, North America and SE Asia). Now if I see a bird on telly or on this forum, the database tells me which book(s) have info on the species. Only about 2,500 species are covered by my field guides so I need to buy more (Africa and South America).

Cheers

Steve Clark
Hamilton, Victoria, Australia

[MikeMules]

I use a book. My life list is kept in both chronological and taxonomic lists in the back half of the book, and the front half is where I write trip lists. I much prefer the pleasure of writing to typing.

However, I am thinking of buying a listkeeping database. There is a very good one (from others' accounts and a few second-hand uses on someone else's computer) for Australia (and the world) called BirdInfo (I think?) that I might get sometime if I'm feeling rich enough.

[Hanno]

I do keep my notebooks. However, for list keeping I have used BirdRecorder for Windows (out of the UK) for years. I find it a very easy program to use and apart from just keeping the species seen, it also lets me put in all sorts of notes. The "professional" edition also comes with distribution mapping.

[Glen Tepke]

I used to keep my lists in an Excel spreadsheet but switched to dedicated listing software -- Avisys -- a few years ago. Much more powerful but expensive. More info about this and other options in this thread:

http://www.birdforum.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6040

Glen

[Michael W]

Hi Glen,
I use Avisys too. Do you have the world version?

Michael

[Charles Harper]

Well, I'll add my two cents' worth, though it's not mainstream, I think.

Field notes, if taken, are in a little pile of notebooks, which are actually not piled, but scattered through several cardboard boxes along with bird cassette tapes and printed checklists from various places I've been, and old birdfinding guides, and packets of snapshots and bird club badges, and maps and....

National lifelists are kept in the field guides... sometimes. Overall world lifelists are maintained in the two Books-- Monroe & Sibley's World Checklist and Jim Clements's World Checklist. Usually the entries match.

No software. I'm sitting at a computer now, but I really don't want to reduce my lovingly handwritten dates and places to bits and bytes. And I don't travel enough to warrant programs that generate all permutations of lists and records.

Interested to hear others' modus operandi though.

[alan_rymer]

Excel Spreadsheet!.

[robinm]

I have written a database in MS Access. This is based on a standard (if such a think exists) list of Western Palearctic birds. I have designed a reporting tool so I can pick out records based on date and locations (from site up to country level). I wanted to be able to quickly answer questions like "How many species have I seen in Kent this year".

[Charles Harper]

Quick, Robin-- How many species have you seen in Kent this year?

[robinm]

Charles: 158 (bit disappointing actually) and it took me about 30 seconds once I read your post.

[Glen Tepke]

Michael,

Yes, I use the world version. I have not done a lot of birding outside the US, but when I do, its helpful to be able to print checklists for that country and "species not seen" lists to help with trip planning. And when I get back, entering sightings by point and click instead of having to type or write out species names is quicker. I can also enter field notes, though I'll admit I'm not much of a note-taker.

Charles - I think one of the advantages of using software -- any software -- to keep lists and notes is that you can easily back those up and put them in a safe place. If my lists were all on paper or written into field guides and my house burned down, all would be lost. Less catastrophically, it is not to hard to lose a field guide in the field. Having a fairly recent backup of my Avisys data file stored on my PC at work gives me some piece of mind.

Glen

[Charles Harper]

I take your point of course, Glen. Having had all my back-up disks become totally worthless with this new computer, however, puts me more in fear of computer glitchiness than arson. Ideally, I should have both, I suppose.

[Alastair Rae]

I use bird recorder for windows. I find it really quick to enter trip records.

However, I tend to update in batches. I keep my year list in a printed check list and eventually get around to enter records on the computer.

(It's the difference between home users and work users. I only rarely turn on the computer at home but I read Bird Forums at lunchtime at work everyday.)

[ColinD]

The debate about whether to keep records on paper or in a database goes much deeper, of course, than just bird records. As a database analyst with 30 years birding experience, I can see it from both sides of the fence.

It reminds me of a company I used to work for 10 years ago. They had literally 100,000's of paper drawings stored in a large store room, some dating back 50 years or more. Many of them had faded and become almost unreadable, and a lot of the paper was so old it almost crumbled in your hand if you touched it. The store room took up nearly half the upper floor of the building, you could never be sure of finding the drawing you wanted and the drawings were constantly under threat of damage from leaks etc. The guy who ran the store smoked a pipe, and didn't seem worried at all that he was working in a tinder dry environement where one spark would wiped out half a century of company drawings.

Contrast that to the new CAD system we implemented. We could back up every drawing on the system overnight, every night. Copies were kept in the local bank. The drawings never deteriate, and they could be stored in a fire proof safe little bigger than the average wardrobe. Finally of course, they could be located and copied in seconds.

Of course there were some obvious computer dangers, such as disk crashes and corruption, but the system was Unix based, so there was very little chance of being hit by a virus, and we did take many precautions to avoid unauthorised access.

Your records are much more secure on a database than they are in a book. A database enables you to query the data and sort it in any way you like, in ways which would be impossible with paper records. It also enables you to distribute the data to others easily, such as county recorders etc. I can have my records ready for the County recorder in between drinks on New Years Day if I like. I don't have to spend days and weeks sorting through notebooks. It allows me in seconds to tell you the exact number of, say, Garganey I have seen ever and where and when they were.

I also keep records of all wildlife, not just birds, and I collect it from other wildlife folk around St. Helens. They all have a copy of my database which they email or bring to me periodically, and I append their data to mine in minutes. All of this is passed on to various recorders. In total I send about 20,000 records a year to various moth, butterfly, bird and dragonfly recorders, all in different formats which they can easily read into their databases. Takes me about one hour to do all that, and takes them minutes to read it into their databases.

My records never fade or crumble away, they're not at risk of flood or mould or fire. I have backup copies locked away in fire safes. Yes the software I use will become outdated, but it's no big task to upgrade.

I wrote my own database using MS Access, because I like the flexibility of being able to change it in any way I like.

Unless your note books are works of art, then I would not hesitate to put your records into a database.

[Dave B Smith]

Colin,

You make a good case for the use of a data base. I keep my trip notes (scattered more loosely than Charles' notes, I'm sure), I also have the more interesting sightings penned in my Field Guide, then after each trip I do a batch input into my Access data base. This only takes moments.

Your reference to the old company drawings reminded me of my first engineering job. I worked for a Water Utility Board in Tennessee and they kept all of their field notes and sketches of water installations in these huge binders. Every drawing was a work of art, you can't imagine for example how many different embellishments you can do just with the North arrow on the drawing. Records went back to about 1900. However, finding the hook up drawing you wanted took some time!

[Geoff Brown]

As I recently started using Mapmate last week to enter the wardens and any other data into the Freiston and Frampton RSPB reserve computers I have also put my own version onto my computer at home for my own use. This programme only costs £29.95. Of course the RSPB version has been specially tweaked for the relevant reserves. It's rapidly becoming quick and easy with use but the programme name "mapmate is a bit of misnomer as so far not many dots have appeared on the map as most of them will be on top of one another. No doubt the warden will tell me I'm doing something wrong when we have used the programme a bit longer but so far so good.

[Larry Lade]

I use a standard database program, dBASE III +

I write my own programs for my bird record keeping. I made one program for my yard birds, one for Missouri birds, one for 'lower 48 states, one for world list, etc. I can create reports and lists anyway that I want, because I write the programs.

I have also written sighting notes into some of my field guides. This seemed a good idea when I started doing this, but then I got a new edition of the field guide, and then another. So do you add notes to the new field guide and just use the one you started with to add your notes to?

I also keep a list in the field when I am birding. I like to transcribe them in taxonomical order when I get home. I include weather information, time spent, areas visited, birds seen, etc. These records I keep by year, each year in a manila folder. Then I keep all the folders in a file cabinet which is located next to my computer.

All these different practices take quite a bit of time, but I enjoy it and I am retired (so I have plenty of time).

I say which ever way suits you, do it!

Larry

[logos]

I use a small section of my brain for lists and an ever growing pile of scruffy notebooks for my day to day records but never seem to look at them again unless extracting records to submit at the end of each year.

Spud

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Spud,

Doesn't your county recorder want them monthly?!? Both to compile the monthly county bulletin, and to spread the records committee workload across the year.

Michael

[logos]

That would be intolerable Michael.

Spud

[Michael Frankis]

Why so?? - its how the system works here, we all send in our record cards at the end of each month, it makes compiling the monthly bulletins and the annual report a lot easier as the workload is spread across the year

Michael

[dennis]

My list is kept in a large(5 subject) spiral ringed notebook

and

on an Excel spreadsheet

and

record in my copy of "Birds of the World a Checklist" by Clements

and

next who-knows-where next!!

dennis

[Karl J]

Interesting topic Dave.

I haven't the first clue how to run lists on my pc, but do keep looking.

For now they are all in notebooks..... 29p from Asda

[shykra]

I use Thayer’s Birders Diary and I love it. I am not a very reliable note taker while I am in the field and my artwork is limited to stick figures at best. I first used it about 3 or 4 years ago and it has become an important part of my birding history. It is also very useful for keeping up with splits, unsplits, side splits, backwards splits, this and that splits etc which now a days seems to happen a bit to often anymore. Don’t get me wrong gene mapping (Or whatever it is called) and getting a positive ID for each and every bird species is awesome, I am just not that type of person that keeps up with that stuff and to have a program that updates that for you is great. It is the most expensive program out there but you can do almost anything you want to do with it, there are frequent updates to it (To keep all this splitting current) and its best feature is that it keeps instant lists for anyplace in the world, since I travel a lot and move often this is very handy for me.

[Fulmar]

I have my lists in a database program, Visual Dbase 5.5. It is very flexible, as I can extract and print every selection in every order I want. My lifelist e.g. has lifernumber, date, country, Dutch name, English name, Latin name, family, and a note if I made a photo or slide. Other lists cover e.g. my photo archive, a list for printing checklists for use in the field, a list for trip summaries, etc. And the lists can be connected to each other if needed.

Just recently I bought Santa Barbara Software's world species BirdBase and BirdArea databases which incorporates the Clements list. This will partly replace my own database. It has all the species and subspecies of the world in it plus the countries and other areas where each bird can be found. And what I especially like is that it is updated regularly and that you know about splits and lumps, the program even does most of the work of updating your records with splits and such.

Peter