Birdtrack (1 Viewer)

I have just started to use birdtrack http://www.bto.org/birdtrack/

Do many of the visitors to the site record their sightings here. It seems a great idea !

gareth2005 said:

I have just started to use birdtrack http://www.bto.org/birdtrack/

Do many of the visitors to the site record their sightings here. It seems a great idea !

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I don't think it has caught on properly yet, and there is a severe flaw in the system, it failing to show any numbers of birds, just number of records.
I looked at the display for Crossbill yesterday and it bears little resemblance to the actual picture in recent weeks.
Apparently there is a steering group looking at how it can be improved.

steve

I have been using it for the last three months..Things could be done better to be honest..But I definately think its going to improve with time..The one thing I will say is the more people that use it the better the system will become with reference to the statistical representaion of birds presence in a particular area etc..
Its not replacing my personal log book just yet though.lol

It's not too bad but seems a little slow and unwieldy to get records into it. Mapmate seems the better system for now.

I had a look at the Mapmate website, does Mapmate update itself with all other recordings like Birdtrack from other users ? or for example if I had Mapmate would I would have to import manually someone elses export list.

Cheers

Gareth

I'm a BirdTracker. The site is useful as an online place to record sightings but that's not really its prime purpose.

"...It is a year–round recording scheme that will use data from birdwatchers records to support species and site conservation at local, national and international scales. Results produced by BirdTrack will include mapping the migration and movements of birds and monitoring of scarce birds in Britain and Ireland. BirdTrack follows on from the successful Migration Watch project that looked at spring migration in 2002-2004. We know very little about the timing of arrival and departure of winter visitors and this is just one area in which BirdTrack will provide useful information. There are also many scarce birds where we would like to know much more about their populations."

Seems good to me.

I've put all my lists on Birdtrack since it started last August. It's useful to have my records there, but as Geoff said, being a place for our individual sightings is not its prime purpose, and the mapping of bird movements etc. and scientific use of these records will be very valuable.

I've enjoyed using the maps to see where birds have been recorded by others. These I'm sure will improve as more and more people start to use it. At the start of the spring there were 2,000 people inputting records, now that's nearly doubled to 3,500, so the information produced will increase in value.

Thanks very much for the positive feedback about BirdTrack - even the more 'negative' comments are helpful and I'm sure we can learn from it.

We have set up a BirdTrack Working Group made up of county recorders and data managers, along with representatives from BTO and RSPB. You can read more about the group and the minutes from the first meeting in April here: http://www.bto.org/birdtrack/bird_recording/btwg_home.htm

You're right that it will continue to improve. We are currently working on an editing facility so you can correct your mistakes online. We hope this will be up and running in the next two weeks. Looking further ahead, we have plans to produce a search facility so you can search your own records and then export them to excel, create a graph or a table.

We are also working on facilities for county bird recorders to download records (where the observer has given permission for the records to be passed on!) at whatever frequency suits. This will be very useful for county bird recorders when it is up and running. In the meantime we have been passing on BirdTrack records to recorders by email.

It may well be possible in the future to be able to export records from packages like Mapmate and import them direct into BirdTrack. At the moment we have quite a lot of built in validation of the records so we would have to create a checking process when records are imported. This is some way in the future (other priorities first) but we have given it some thought.

We can start to think about some output that includes numbers of birds rather than just presence/absence that is currently shown on the maps and graphs. Your ideas are most welcome. What do you want - a daily or weekly summary for each species or selected species? For species like Blue Tit it would be a huge table to list even the daily submissions!

BirdTrack is very much 'work in progress' and we have a lot of good plans to implement over the next couple of years. I think there is a lot of good information there at the moment (but then I'm biased!), especially the animated maps and the graphs showing the proportion of lists with a particular species. If you've got time have a look at this link and select 'Chiffchaff' from the top option (Species results and maps):
http://www.bto.org/birdtrack/dailyresults/results20.htm
What has happened to all the Chiffchaffs this summer?

Thanks to those of you already submitting your sightings. Please continue and tell your friends!

Best wishes
Dawn Balmer
BirdTrack Organiser
(on behalf of BTO, RSPB and BirdWatch Ireland)

It would be great if the grid references map would cover Ireland ?
Overall I think its a great idea...Well done to all involved

gareth2005 said:

It would be great if the grid references map would cover Ireland ?
Overall I think its a great idea...Well done to all involved

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We are working on getting maps for Ireland but currently they cost a fortune! You'll see that we've added some of the more popular birdwatching sites in a drop-down menu for a quick site set-up.

Thanks
Dawn

Yeah saw that any chance you's could add a few for the Co.Louth Dundalk,Gyles Quay and Annagassan area ?
I have emailed birdtrack already