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"Scythebill" Easy to Use Bird Recording Software for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux (1 Viewer)

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carlLBJ

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"Scythebill" Easy to Use Bird Recording Software for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux

Hello to all birders

I have found a great piece of free and opensource birding software called "Scythebill". It is a simple bird sightings database software that I have been using it for some time now and I really like it.

Software Summery:

Scythebill is very simple to use and is the only birding software program that is cross platform (which means it will operate easily on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux). I have tested it on mac os x and windows and it works great on both.

It includes the entire Clements Checklist of Birds of the World built in, and they frequently update the checklist to the latest version.

It includes all major locations such as continents, countries, states/provinces etc.

It is vary easy to use and entering sightings is pretty quick.

Scythebill does not have the "observers" feature like most birding software have, instead Scythebill creates a database file to store sightings in which you can maintain multiple database files for observers and/or locations etc.

Scythebill has a simple and easy reports section which you can create an html report or export sightings to ebird.

I am exited because this is the only piece of good birding software that is opensource (which means anyone can contribute to the softwares development). That means that birders can request features or learn the programing and add the features yourself.

Anyway I like using Scythebill, I have my entire life list in it, and I hope other birders will try it out too. And the best thing about Scythebill is that IT'S FREE!!!|=)|

Go to http://code.google.com/p/scythebill-birdlist/ to learn more
 
Well, I'm still looking for a good solution that will work on a Mac. I've downloaded it and played with it.

Working out how to add a new location (which is inevitably needed if you want to record more location detail than country/state of the US is tricky, but fortunately there's a guide through that on the google page.

It's potentially good for keeping a life list if one is prepared to base it on Clements. It does allow recording of sub-species which will make it a lot easier to sort out any future splits.

It allows the recording of additional information such as number, male/female/immature and status (introduced/native/not accepted/not established), as well as `heard only' plus additional free-format notes.

Entering data assumes that it's done on a `per date' basis, which is a bit of a pain depending on how one's current records are kept (entering from a list of birds is a bit painful because of this). What I do like is that you use your keyboard to start typing rather than having to deal with lots of menus. The software is pretty good at finding a list of birds you might have meant, which one can work through with up and down arrow, return enters the currenly chosen species.

Once there's some data there are a number of ways in which one can look at it: per location, per taxonomic group, etc.

Output is possible to html, for EBird and for something called Birdstack. I haven't tried any of these in practice.

The question, as with pretty much any of these pieces of software is what happens if the current developer decides they no longer have the time/interest to keep supporting it.

The information is stored in an xml file so certainly it is still going to be accessible, but in all likelihood it will either require somebody to write a program to rewrite it into a file suitable for some other program, or it will have to be reentered by hand.

Just a few thoughts. I'd certainly be interested in alternative programs, in particular if they work on a Mac as well as under Unix.

Andrea
 
Cheshire Birder said:
Can the data be exported to Excel? My local group uses that as the basis for its records.
Click to expand...

That's not an option. Excel is a Microsoft product and there's no native version for Linux, so this wouldn't really fit with an application that's trying to work on all three major operating systems. (I guess exporting to a format recognized by excel would still be an option.)

I get the impression that this application has been developed by one person in his spare time, to keep his own life list primarily, although he appears to be looking for people to help develop it further. Right now there aren't a lot of frills, but it's free and doesn't rely on any other programs.

I'll play with it a bit more. I might write a more detailed review if I think that's appropriate.

Andrea
 
Listing Software (Mac)

alancairns said:
I know of two good solutions for Mac. Wings (http://web.mac.com/wings_4d/Wings/Welcome.html), and Bird Brain (http://www.birdwatching.com/birdbrain/). Wings works in Mac and Windows. Neither is free.
Click to expand...

For the first url (Wings) I get a `mobile me is closed' message, but it doesn't say whether that's permanent or temporary (and there's a `not found' in the url it takes me to, making me wonder whether that site is still active at all). In any case, Wings requires an annual subscription, and that's a model I really don't like too much.

Bird Brain can certainly do a few things Scythebill cannot, but I'm not sure I'd actually use any of them. What isn't very well answered in any of the documentation I've found is how robust it is as a format. Again, what happens if the company behind the software stops supporting it? It's possible to export to an excel format, so I guess there's a chance that the information contained in it could be imported into another piece of software. Certainly Bird brain itself doesn't easily take records produced with some other software (they offer to have a look at anything you can give them and do some kind of manual (or semi-manual?) conversion service for $20. Like Scythebill it's based on the Clements checklist.

As somebody who is starting to build a world life list with currently a few hundred records it really isn't clear to me how to sensibly keep track of what I've seen where. Clearly whatever solution has to be future proof to be worth considering. Putting in records and maintaining them is a time-intensive process, at least if it has to be repeated.

Maybe going with one of the online options such as Bubo is the way to go, but that means everything is in the public domain. As somebody who doesn't even have a supermarket loyalty card because of data protection concerns this isn't something I'd do lightly. On the other hand if there's a community then there's a decent chance that are enough people to ensure that the service is maintained.

I'm now in danger of hijacking the original thread, so I'll stop here. If anybody can point me at a discussion of these issues I'd really appreciate it.

Andrea
 
kitefarrago said:
That's not an option. Excel is a Microsoft product and there's no native version for Linux, so this wouldn't really fit with an application that's trying to work on all three major operating systems. (I guess exporting to a format recognized by excel would still be an option.)

I get the impression that this application has been developed by one person in his spare time, to keep his own life list primarily, although he appears to be looking for people to help develop it further. Right now there aren't a lot of frills, but it's free and doesn't rely on any other programs.

I'll play with it a bit more. I might write a more detailed review if I think that's appropriate.

Andrea
Click to expand...

Thank you for your assistance. If it is possible to convert to an excel format I would be interested to try this program to see if it suits my needs.

CB
 
G'day all

The Wings website is broken because it was hosted on Apple's MobileMe service which ceased to exist on 1st July 2012 (yesterday). I'm sure the Wings developer will find a new host for it.

I've used Wings on the Mac for many years now. First it was free and now there is a Windows version and an annual fee. I don't particularly like the annual fee model but I think the charge is not unreasonable and the product is good. That said it needs a bit of a refresh right now as it doesn't play nicely with OS X Lion - some of the graphic elements, buttons etc are messed up. Also the taxonomy follows the IOC but is several revisions out of date now.

My subscription expires in a few weeks and I will resubscribe. I'm also keeping an eye out for new Mac listing software.

It is fairly easy to export records from Wings and then to transfer them to other apps via delimited text files.

Cheers
Steve
 
Hello all,

I'm the author of Scythebill, and just noticed this thread.

As surmised, this is software I built initially to maintain my own list. The commercial software that's out there is quite good, and well worth the fees charged, but I've not been able to wrap my head around entrusting a commercial entity with this precious data. I've been birding for 24 years now, and expect to keep it up for another 40 or so (health permitting). How many of these companies will still be around in 2050? Similarly, single-platform operations worry me. I'm a MacOS-phile today, but I ought to be free to switch my allegiances without worrying about my data. And online-only operations (at least as a sole repository of data) scare me even more: if they go out of business (and with a multi-decade timescale, the odds aren't in their favor), your data's history.

Hence, the theory: open-source, cross-platform software with transparent data formats. So even if I croak, the data's still yours. However, in practice, this is still a single-person labor of love. I can't let it get too rusty - it's got all of my sightings (5266 species) - but there's a limit to my free time. It'd be great to find other birders with solid programming chops and the time to help out, but those are few and far between.

In the meantime, I'm very interested in knowing what features would make it more useful and what existing features are too hard to use (I'm very much aware that entering new locations is a pain).

FYI: I just put out a new version today. Nothing huge, but there's improved reporting of groups and subspecies, and it looks better on MacOS Lion. The next release should be in a month or so when the next Clements update comes out (I'm a taxonomy nut, so I won't wait long to incorporate the changes).

Cheers,
Adam Winer
 
Adam,

nice of you to contribute to this thread. I was encouraged by the original mail to try out the software. I've listed above what I like about it: The data is indeed stored in a format that is available and human-readable even - and I've hand-edited that file to deal with some mistakes made when entering hundreds of sightings. I really like the idea that it doesn't rely on a particular OS and not a lot of other software.

I do now have a few hundred species in there. I agree that the new location is a pain. Is there a way of adding a location without any associated sightings? If I want to introduce a Canadian province and a specific location in that province where the actual sighting took place I couldn't find a way other than adding a sighting on the province level and then removing it by editing the file at a later time.

For entering a trip list I do wonder whether it would be easier to do this per species (since one would have the same ssp most of the time, and the introduced vs native, etc, criteria wouldn't change either) rather than per date. That way one could pick a species/subspecies and then just add the dates on which it was seen.

Having said this, I found working with it straight-forward. I like the way the ssp data comes with range information, making it much easier to determine what one has likely seen. I like the way I can go through all the families to see which species I've seen (with detail if I like), and it was easy to note that there were some oversights in my original data entry effort. Exporting to html for a printable list should be fine (haven't tried it yet), though maybe pdf would be more flexible (but that would be a lot more work I suspect).

I'm not a programmer so can't really help with the development effort. I do work with computer science students so if I ever come across one who's interested in birdwatching I'll point them your way.

Thanks for making this software available,

Andrea
 
awiner said:
Andrea: would it be useful to simply allow entering new locations from the "Browse by location" screen?
Click to expand...

It would be good enough for me, but it would be more confusing to new users, I think. I had to resort to you Wiki entry to work out how to enter new locations in any case, but you already know that is a bit awkward. Once I caught on to it I had no problems other than the fact that I was trying to work out how to add a level of location (such as a province) without an accompanying sighting.

If you decide to do that I wonder whether there would be away of adding a hint somewhere (such as on the `add sightings' screen).

Andrea
 
Haven't really looked at it yet, but does it allow entering your own taxonomy? I haven't been able to find free software that I can easily enter records of dragonflies, herps, mammals etc.
 
0.8.5 beta is available

To follow up: I've got a beta of the next version available, which improves (I hope) location entry, and also adds IUCN Redlist data (so I can happily/sadly report that I've seen 19 Critically Endangered species). Feedback is welcome.

Reuven: the main obstacle for providing taxonomies for herps, leps, odes, etc. is the lack of anything resembling a thorough, consistent world list. To the extent that they exist, they mostly seem like raw lists of scientific names with no other data, which would not make for a satisfying experience. If that changes, I'd be interested in expanding Scythebill to support a greater variety of life.
 
Adam,
We just downloaded your software. Very easy and well organized. What might be the best way to attach our own photos to our sightings, based on the same data base as Scythebill? What solution are you using - or anyone else using Scythebill?

Thanks again for the great program. Brian and Linda Petersen
 
I see members are asking in this thread what bird recording softwear works on a Mac. I use Macs and Bird journal for recording my sightings. I did have to get hold of a windows system disk and bought Paralles for mac. It works well on my Intel Cure Duo mac. Even better after I increased the Ram.
Mike
 
Brian and Linda - I don't yet have any features for attaching photographs. I've pondered adding such a feature, but haven't hit on anything I'd really consider both simple and useful.

Another update: Scythebill now does support the IOC list (and, as of 20 minutes ago, IOC version 3.3). You can flip between Clements and IOC at will, at any point in the program.

And it now does offer full export to CSV, so you can take the data with you (as you should be able to with any program), and import to Excel or elsewhere.
 
awiner said:
Another update: Scythebill now does support the IOC list (and, as of 20 minutes ago, IOC version 3.3). You can flip between Clements and IOC at will, at any point in the program.
Click to expand...

That is brilliant news as far as I'm concerned! Being locked into Clements was one of my very few niggles...

Thanks,

Andrea
 
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