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Log Books/Note Books (1 Viewer)

mattwhite

Well-known member
Hi

Just wondering what info you keep in your log/note books? Are they just a list of dates and birds, or do you put more detail?

I love looking at other birders note books, I think they offer a great insight into the person/birder.
I especially like log/note books with illustrations/paintings, has anyone any links to websites which contain scanned images from birders notebooks.

Matt
 
I can't draw and I don't do photos, so my notebooks are very dull. But yes, as much detail as possible, after all you can't rely on memory for ever.
One of Bill Oddie's earlier books (it may have been the Little Black Bird Book) has some great copies of his notebooks through his various plumage phases, worth a look if you can.
 
Hi.

Every day in my nature binder, I write down the date, name of park(s), birds and wildlife sighted, gender of bird (if obvious), number sighted, is the bird an adult or imm., any other special stuff - eg. moulting, appears pregnant, in a nest, etc. Sadly, also if bird is dead. Yikes!

Then there's "OK, it's now the official start of Spring " ... every year, an adult male Red-winged Blackbird waits until I've walked by and then it attacks from the rear ... the back of my head gets pecked, he flies to a nearby branch and "laughs" at me! Last year was quite early with a March attack. In the nature binder, I just write "He's Back!" :-O

Jo-Anne
 
I can't draw and I don't do photos, so my notebooks are very dull. But yes, as much detail as possible, after all you can't rely on memory for ever.
One of Bill Oddie's earlier books (it may have been the Little Black Bird Book) has some great copies of his notebooks through his various plumage phases, worth a look if you can.

yes bill oddies little black book has loads of copies of pages from his diary. very humorous. you can pick up that book for a couple of quid 2nd hand its a fun read.
 
yes bill oddies little black book has loads of copies of pages from his diary. very humorous. you can pick up that book for a couple of quid 2nd hand its a fun read.

The photographs of Bill Oddie's original notebooks and drawings which Dave mentioned, are actually contained within his second book, 'Bill Oddie's - Gone Birding'.
 
I do all my birding/nature/travel notes on a tiny (smaller than most mobile phones) digital recorder that hangs around my neck. I can't draw for toffee so I don't need a notebook for that and the recorder is good enough to pick up nearby bird calls/songs. I've used it to playback the song of, for example, a Barratt's Warbler and entice the bird into view and have also used it many times to support the identification of unfamilar birds.

The files can be uploaded to PCs etc. for safekeeping and because it's on a lanyard it can be recorded into "hands free" meaning I can keep looking at/for birds whilst using it. The model I use now is a few years old and will record for about 30 hours on the highest quality setting and 120 on the lowest quality. Main drawback is the tendency to forget to switch it off, which uses the (AAA) batteries. Best thing about it is that you can take the notes whilst actually looking at the bird, thereby recording every detail that occurs to you. 2nd best thing is probably that it doesn't rot or get soggy in the tropics.

If I could draw, then I'd probably like to use a notebook and pencils, but I much prefer it to the notepads I used to use.
 
My "Rite In The Rain" notebooks are full of chickenscratch. I do one line per point count - station, time and species ticked like "APA-IIIII,III ELE-II YFC-IIII HWA-I" etc. Very little else goes in there, though I occasionally add notes about unusual things like band colors, habitat condition, vandalism, feral dogs, weeds, rare plants, etc. For endangered birds I make some note about their identification to appease the e-Bird moderator. I used to try to make cryptic and often ineffective notes about the calls made by less common alien and endangered birds to try to remember all the different things they say, but recently got a digital recorder to do that job vastly better. I always had a difficult time remembering what "pnH" and "chEE" actually sound like. When I get home all the chickenscratch gets uploaded into eBird.
 
I tend to just list the very basics in an A4 day-to-a-page diary - weather conditions, time, areas visited etc and the birds seen - totals, sexes etc. Put in photos of birds seen too....my sketching is hopeless :smoke:

One if my favourite sites is the Boulmer Birder who is a local guy - I always check his sites first :t: He's a fabulous artist too and I'd love to be talented enough to produce notebooks as good as his....here's a link....:king:

The blog home page

http://www.boulmerbirder.blogspot.com/

Notebook section...click on 'field notebooks 1 & 2' on the right of the page

http://sites.google.com/site/theboulmerbirder/
 
I usually just jot down place, date and time and what I see (how many, gender, age and so on), although for rarities I often like to add a bit more, like some ID pointers, how many other birders were there, the bird's behaviour and so on.
Fot some reason I always forget to write down the weather...

I would love to be able to draw, so I've been thinking I'm going to try it come the spring. (Far too cold now to take off my mittens!)
 
I can tell you I keep copius notes when I am watching. I include: time of day, temperature, basic weather conditions, birds by species and number seen, and anything else of note I see.

As time goes by, the notes help me establish the frequency of visitors. I also try to get pics of my regulars and visitors. And, I am constantly trying to improve upon the pics I've taken. For example, I saw a White-Crowned Sparrow this spring, snapped a couple long range shots with my 250mm lens, and had a terrible IQ when I uploaded it. However, that was enough to get help ID'ing the bird, along with my notes. Now, I must wait for them to migrate back through to improve upon that shot. Others, like my Northern Cardinal, have several high quality pics because I see them multiple times per day....great lighting, bad lighting, winter, summer, spring, fledging, etc.

Notes are important, and will help you remember what/who you saw. You can then start catering your feeding stations, or visits, to your experiences and start to predict what you will see when you go out.....and also know what is truly a rare sighting the minute you spot it.
 
My field notebook usually has general weather obs, date, place at the start of the day then an eclectic mix of species, counts, observations ( and shopping lists etc) I also carry a sketch book for anything good. When I get home I tend to do a write up in a A5 day to day diary. At the end of the year the notebooks, sketch books and diary go into a box file which means you've got all on one years records in one place. Having said that threr is no fixed rule, just put what you want in - it's your notebook.
Chris
 
Notebook section...click on 'field notebooks 1 & 2' on the right of the page
http://sites.google.com/site/theboulmerbirder/
Those sketches are amazing. I sketch sometimes, so I can quickly describe plumage patterns and colours, but the end results generally don't look much like the bird I saw.

In addition to some of the things others have mentioned, I make sure I write down the time I finished as well as the time I started, as the duration of the survey is required for the Birds Australia Atlas database (https://www.birdata.com.au), and the coordinates of the site. Sometimes I put down the time I saw each bird, or every 5th one, etc, if it's busy. That helps me work out where I saw a particular bird later, if need be, if I've recorded a GPS log, and to identify photos I've taken.

I often record details that might help others find a bird again, e.g. landmarks, time of day, tide level and direction, and I try to record enough that I'll fully understand my notes in a few years (e.g. not too much abbreviation of species names), and be able to find the place again myself (e.g. distance down a road, etc).

Once I've entered the details into a database, I record the survey number the computer assigned, so that I know I've entered it, and so I can look it up on the computer easily.

For what it's worth, I use A7 vertically bound notebooks with spiral binding big enough to stick a mechanical pencil into so they stay together in my pocket. I also keep it folded back to the page I'm using, and I put an elastic band around it so the pages don't get caught on my pocket and ripped.
 
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My notebooks are dull in appearance. I record the date, location, time and weather conditions. I list species seen or heard underneath but not all species, only the 'notable' ones if you excuse the pun. I tend not to include the common species or ones I find boring/take for granted i.e Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Pheasant as well as some species of gulls or corvids, amongst others. In spring/summer I record all species I hear singing so, for example, I don't include common species such as Blue or Great Tits unless I hear them singing. I keep notes partly for the satisfaction of writing down what I see/hear but mainly for future reference. Saying that, I don't look back through old notebooks often enough.
 
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My notebooks are dull in appearance. I record the date, location, time and weather conditions. I list species seen or heard underneath but not all species, only the 'notable' ones if you excuse the pun. I tend not to include the common species or ones I find boring/take for granted i.e Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Pheasant as well as some species of gulls or corvids, amongst others. In spring/summer I record all species I hear singing so, for example, I don't include common species such as Blue or Great Tits unless I hear them singing. I keep notes partly for the satisfaction of writing down what I see/hear but mainly for future reference. Saying that, I don't look back through old notebooks often enough.
I find I'm falling into the same habits as I become more experienced, not because I intend not to record common species, but because I've somehow trained myself to only look for the unexpected, so I sometimes forget to write them down.

Depending on what you do with your notes, I don't think it's always a good idea. One day any of those species might become rare, and people will suddenly be very interested in how the numbers have varied over the years.

I often hear complaints that some people refuse to record "ferals" - non native species. In this country many of these species are slowly spreading, and it's certain that one day someone will be interested to see how fast that spread occurred.

Another note taking style I've heard criticised is not noting where a species was seen during a trip. A researcher was trying to get an idea of changes in species diversity in a particular area by going through old notebooks owned by a club. They found that some people starting listing species from the moment they walked out the door, as they were now on their "trip". The site was 100km away, and there was nothing in the notes to say when they actually arrived and left there. Therefore what could have been valuable information was rendered useless for that purpose.

I've noticed that I've become guilty of taking barely any notes at all when I'm on a "mission" to see a particular species. Too busy looking for it, perhaps?
 
I was just reminded by this on another thread I contributed to. I always write my name and phone number in the front of every notebook I start, with the words "PLEASE return ASAP!". I've never needed it yet, but it's so easy to leave things behind in someone else's car after a trip.

I started doing this when I dropped a nearly full notebook once, and didn't realise for several minutes. It took nearly an hour to find, it was just a metre to one side of where I thought I'd walked. I don't know if anyone else would have found it before it was too sodden to read, but I knew there was no chance it was ever coming back without my contact details in it.

I often hear of old notes being entered into databases years after the note taker is deceased. I wonder if anyone would do that if they didn't know for sure whose notebooks they were.
 
Someday I'll switch my 'notebook' to a mobile device that uploads my counts to eBird immediately, from anywhere.... ;)
 
I do all my birding/nature/travel notes on a tiny (smaller than most mobile phones) digital recorder that hangs around my neck. I can't draw for toffee so I don't need a notebook for that and the recorder is good enough to pick up nearby bird calls/songs. I've used it to playback the song of, for example, a Barratt's Warbler and entice the bird into view and have also used it many times to support the identification of unfamilar birds.

The files can be uploaded to PCs etc. for safekeeping and because it's on a lanyard it can be recorded into "hands free" meaning I can keep looking at/for birds whilst using it. The model I use now is a few years old and will record for about 30 hours on the highest quality setting and 120 on the lowest quality. Main drawback is the tendency to forget to switch it off, which uses the (AAA) batteries. Best thing about it is that you can take the notes whilst actually looking at the bird, thereby recording every detail that occurs to you. 2nd best thing is probably that it doesn't rot or get soggy in the tropics.

If I could draw, then I'd probably like to use a notebook and pencils, but I much prefer it to the notepads I used to use.

Which digital recorder do you use?
 
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