How do you record your sightings? (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

I have just updated my lists having finished my summer holidays. I started birding nearly 3 years ago and just kind of absorbed my habits from viewing others and using this forum.

I have three books; one which I take with me and record sightings each day, where and when, one which I record all sightings from each place I visit and one, which is alphabetical, were I record all my sightings.

I wondered how others make their records?

I use eBird. I am trying to learn all the different types of birds and eBird is great to see the list of what has been spotted at what time of year in a hotspot near me.

You can update the app as you are out and about, it logs time, date, location, distance, etc. you can add photos and more specific details.

I can also upload a photo for identification using another of their apps.

I record all of my sightings, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, arthropods and wild flowers in photos. The photos are then indexed by time/date/location. It is a very good system, but I generally only keep about 30% of my photos. So, in the case that I saw a species but did not record it through photos then I will make a note of it.

I have been using eBird for my birding records going on six years now. A long time ago, I wrote my sightings in my field guide, but then it got ruined by water and all was lost. Now I still note first sightings in my regional guides, but work back from eBird to do so. I started using eBird on my fiftieth birthday, so it is my "life-after-fifty" list.

Recently I've started using iNaturalist for other natural history photographic recordings (which has in turn spurred me to take photos of more than just birds).

There's this website called waarneming.nl for Dutchies, observation.org internationally which imho has the most elaborate features I could find when recently comparing it with ebird, iGoTerra and a few other platforms. I enter my sightings on spot in the app, which are gps based and fall into named smaller or larger natural regions. All kind of personal lists are thus automatically made or you can make them yourselves. All observations from a giant database which gives oversights, maps and statistics, and information of all birds which make great learn and discover features. One can directly upload pictures and have ID software make determination suggestions. And there's a dedicated team of moderators reviewing sightings with pics and sounds, acknowledginng sightings or correcting them thus offering learning experiences. A real interactive birding community.

I use both ebird and several binders, one for each continent. ebird is excellent but I like the paper version also because I write notes about my sightings. Not just date and location and it is easy to look up what I have already seen without using the computer. This is handy if you are in a place that does not have internet.

Notebooks. One per year in Britain, one per country or region abroad. I refer to them surprisingly often, and having all the species for one day of all groups on one page or series of pages triggers memories like nothing else.

John

I generally don't keep any records other than those that are in my head. Most of my birdwatching involves spending time observing and studying individual birds or groups of birds.

As such I am likely to miss lots of other things as I become engrossed in watching particular individuals or groups for long periods of time and often spend much of the day watching one particular species.

I do sometimes count wader flocks on my local patch in winter and pass the information on where appropriate but I don't keep a record of every individual species seen on any given occasion.

Notebooks - one per year for all birding trips (birds, mammals and insects)
Diary - transcribe the rough notes made "in the field" (if there’s space some detail about where I walked or sat and chronological list of birds followed by chronological list of other wildlife.
BUBO - currently has a number of country lists and year lists, considering migrating to Scythebill.

Bird track - https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/birdtrack

Ebird - https://ebird.org/home

Bubo - https://www.bubo.org/

Igoterra - https://www.igoterra.com/landing.asp

I suspect choice will boil down to whether you simply want a manuscript or computer record; whether you want to record all wildlife; whether you want to keep a simple list or cover all sightings; & whether you wish the repository of your records to include photos and recordings.

I use ebird and wish it had been available when I started but I keep a few lists on Bubo as well.

Bear in mind taxonomies will differ between recording systems as well as definitions of geographic areas.

All the best

Thanks for all the interesting posts.

I might stick to the written word, but I have signed up to ebird to see what it has to offer!

Notebook, photos and videos (from my phone).

I record species, number location and grid reference then send them off to the County recorder at the end of the year. The submissions are collated in the county records so they can gauge numbers and trends. I think they are then submitted to a national recording organisation so national numbers and trends can be recorded. Many of my recordings end up on the WEBs data since they are often higher than those recorded on the set WEBs days.
All very useful data and a reminder where to go at which time of year to catch up on different species, so it kills two birds with one stone[ not sure that's the best way to put it on here].
I do this on the computer so it's no great chore.
My personal records show how Common Cuckoo are holding up round here, being recorded in the same sort of places they were seen or heard a few years ago.
This year there was a remarkable increase in Blackcap and Common Whitethroat were more numerous. Willow Warbles are still widespread and numerous, reflected in the latest county report which have increased by 5% compared to a drop nationally. I've recorded more Marsh Tit than ever this year, a reflection of the area, where there are many limestone woodlands, which they seem to favour.
A dip in Green Woodpecker this year was unexpected, although I didn't visit two hot spots this year where I'd be surprised if they weren't there.

I keep a notebook (start a new one each year) which I carry with me in the field to keep a record of what I see on each trip etc. I use the birdwatchers year book to keep an annual list as this has the british list in, divided into months (I only record the first sighting of the year in these rather than every occasion) with several additional columns that you can use for different things such as your full year list, county list, garden list, holiday list also. I like the yearbook as it has a diary section where you can record your actual trips or any other information. There is also a section with maps of reserves by region, tide timetables sunrise and sunset information etc.

For me, the very best to use in the field, and logging most information will probably be the observation app (obsmapp or iObs: https://apps.apple.com/be/app/iobs/id713587892?l=eng ), but I can't compare with igoterra and inaturalist as I haven't tried those (is anyone volunteering to try / compare all of those and publish an article ?.

Obsmapp / iObs have a build-in obsidentify function: you take a picture of an insect or plant (or even a digiscoped bird) and the app will try to recognize it. It works very well for some groups (like beetles, butterflies,...) but not all.

Note that ebird only does birds. Other sites do all groups of animals.

The reason I still believe ebird is not great, is their use of hotspots. Hotspots make it easier to get a general grip on an area because it has great filters.
But their use of hotspots are my main gripe: hotspots produce a nice list but it's actually very vague information, and while ebird enables you to use personal markers, it's not encouraged / designed to do this and not many users make good use of personal markers. They keep using checklists and the exact location of certain birds ends up being lumped in the hotspot coordinate, that is often totally unrelated to the habitat of the bird.

Fact is that hotspots dilute location data in a way that they are annoyingly confusing when you are trying to locate a certain species or sighting. The hotspot can be miles off the real location of a certain sighting.

Other sites log sightings while your GPS on your mobile phone is active, so you have exact coordinates for each sighting. This makes it way, way easier to locate sightings of other birders (like for a twitch or travel), and it makes it also easier for yourself to retrieve that info (e.g. when you want to check certain nest holes in the forest or certain fields for butterflies).

Anytime a good bird comes out in the USA, I see all kinds of people giving long descriptions of where to find a bird, often referring to google maps because the link to an ebird hotspot is often worthless. With observation, all you need to do is go to the insert-your-country subsite of observation and all info, with exact location, time stamp etcetera, is there. The only thing needed is a broader userbase ;-)

temmie said:

The reason I still believe ebird is not great, is their use of hotspots. Hotspots make it easier to get a general grip on an area because it has great filters.
But their use of hotspots are my main gripe: hotspots produce a nice list but it's actually very vague information, and while ebird enables you to use personal markers, it's not encouraged / designed to do this and not many users make good use of personal markers. They keep using checklists and the exact location of certain birds ends up being lumped in the hotspot coordinate, that is often totally unrelated to the habitat of the bird.

Fact is that hotspots dilute location data in a way that they are annoyingly confusing when you are trying to locate a certain species or sighting. The hotspot can be miles off the real location of a certain sighting.

Click to expand...

I agree about the hotspots issue, and would go on to say that it goes against Cornell Lab's own instructions on how to use eBird, in relation to the Global Big Day - namely, to start a different list every time you go to a different location. The first time I used eBird I let it track where I was using the GPS co-ordinates, then realised that unless this was turned into a hotspot, there was no way third parties could view these data. Now if I use eBird I tend to lump observations together into a hotspot, adding to the problems you set out.

I tend to use a notebook when doing trips abroad, but I keep all my life-lists on BUBO. I note that I tend to describe sightings far more than others do on BUBO.

I also record all my sightings in the Birdwatchers Logbook, I started in 1998 and am up to Book 14 ! It is nice to look back at my own rambles and descriptions of my trips.

kb57 said:

I agree about the hotspots issue, and would go on to say that it goes against Cornell Lab's own instructions on how to use eBird, in relation to the Global Big Day - namely, to start a different list every time you go to a different location. The first time I used eBird I let it track where I was using the GPS co-ordinates, then realised that unless this was turned into a hotspot, there was no way third parties could view these data. Now if I use eBird I tend to lump observations together into a hotspot, adding to the problems you set out.

Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of eBird and use it almost every day.
But it can be abused. For example, I have seen birds listed as 'in Surrey' (my home county) which just don't occur here - some guys doing a 'big year' were the culprits on at least one occasion. They were probably more interested in keeping a UK list than in worrying about where the birds were.
eBird is very versatile. It could, with comparatively little effort, be adapted for non-avian lists. But I don't think that Cornell is interested.

As someone else mentioned, different software uses different taxonomy. For example, Brent goose (pale-bellied) and Brent goose (dark-bellied) just count as one species on eBird. I suspect (but don't know) that some lists would treat them as two species.

I keep my "official" lists in various spreadsheets. I also now have spreadsheets for each major trip I take and I save those, too for future reference (i.e. taxonomy changes).

I also use eBird, albeit inconsistently, most for inputting local data. But I've never made the effort to add all of my international sightings / lists to eBird. Too much work.

Surreybirder said:

I'm a big fan of eBird and use it almost every day.
But it can be abused. For example, I have seen birds listed as 'in Surrey' (my home county) which just don't occur here - some guys doing a 'big year' were the culprits on at least one occasion. They were probably more interested in keeping a UK list than in worrying about where the birds were.
eBird is very versatile. It could, with comparatively little effort, be adapted for non-avian lists. But I don't think that Cornell is interested.

As someone else mentioned, different software uses different taxonomy. For example, Brent goose (pale-bellied) and Brent goose (dark-bellied) just count as one species on eBird. I suspect (but don't know) that some lists would treat them as two species.

Click to expand...

Despite the shortcomings we've discussed, I should use eBird a lot more too...it still doesn't have the reach in UK it has in other parts of the world (and I don't mean just USA), although I guess others would say we should use BirdTrack here instead. When out in the field, I still find a pencil and notebook less distracting than a mobile phone.

As far as taxonomy is concerned, it defaults to Clements, which tends to lump species which are split by IOC, and to be a bit less up-to-date. You can set it to IOC taxonomy for data input, but everything on their database is listed in Clements. That said, AFAIK both lump brent geese together, not sure if there is any mainstream taxonomy which currently splits them?