world list apps (1 Viewer)

njlarsen said:

Preferably both. I may enter observations in the field using for example an iOS app into ebird, or I may enter observations at home into a local database for upload to ebird.

Are those two functionalities both available in the free version, or is it limited to the paid version? And how about an import utility from Birdbase?

Niels

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Niels, Scythebill supports:

- Import from eBird (four different formats, basically everything it exports)
- Import into eBird (including all the visit metadata, like protocol, that eBird allows for imports)
- Import from Birdbase

(and muuuuch more). Should take all of a few seconds to import a large life list.

awiner said:

Should take all of a few seconds to import a large life list.

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My 11K database only took seconds. Extremely fast!

HantaYo said:

I am receiving help from IgoTerra with the import of my database. Will see how their software works out.

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Hi HantaYo, how is your work with IgoTerra going? I'd be especially interested how you find it compares to Bird Journal.

I'm still with Bird Journal V3 (the desktop only version) and wonder whether to upgrade to the newer BJ versions or switch to IgoTerra.

I did a few trials with ebird and igoterro and realised that I will have to do some sorting of taxonomy, as my BJ 3 seems not to use the latest taxonmy any more (or hasn't applied splits/lumps to my recordings). Igoterra seems to have quite some advanced functions assisting correction of species assignments during imports. ebird also does this, but I found the process and results there rather inconsistent . I'm not sure about Bird Journal regarding this issue. This text here doesn't sound as it offers (yet) functions comparable to igoterra http://support.birdjournal.com/knowledgebase/articles/444445-how-are-taxonomy-updates-handled

Regarding other functions, I'm quite happy with bird journal, except that it doesn't really indicate lifers. I havn't fully explored igoterra yet, but it seems pretty good.

I've also tried Skythebill, which looks pretty good even though of course it is not as sophisticated as the others (which in turn are not for free). But it seems I would have to sort out the taxonomic updates manually in my recordings before importing to scythebill, there does not seem to be any built in assistance for this.

I'd be happy about some comments to bird journal vs. igoterra.

I've also tried Skythebill, which looks pretty good even though of course it is not as sophisticated as the others (which in turn are not for free). But it seems I would have to sort out the taxonomic updates manually in my recordings before importing to scythebill, there does not seem to be any built in assistance for this.

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I had a fairly up to date system, but even so, I did have some things that needed updating after import to Scythebill. There actually are a couple of items that helps with problems of that sort. (and there may be more I have not discovered yet):
1) select reports and the option to show hybrids/sp observations. Many of these will be things that Scythebill have not fully resolved. When clicking an observation you are given some choices, and for each of these, the range information built in is right there. Often that range info was enough.
2) use the check against checklist option to find out of range observations, some of which will be a bird referred to a pre-split species no longer in range where you saw it.

Obviously if you want to keep your list up to date with both Clements and IOC you would have to go through this twice.

Niels

dalat said:

Hi HantaYo, how is your work with IgoTerra going? I'd be especially interested how you find it compares to Bird Journal.

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I gave up on IgoTerra. I was just too slow for me (I am on a 12MG internet plan so it should of worked fine). It was just too frustrating. The concept looks great but implementation was just hit and miss. Also, I am hesitant putting my data ONLY on the cloud. I like bird journal in that the mobile app syncs with the computer app. The mobile app you can take in the field and have your whole database available even if you have no internet service- a common occurrence where I bird.

I'm still with Bird Journal V3 (the desktop only version) and wonder whether to upgrade to the newer BJ versions or switch to IgoTerra..

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Bird Journal 4 is still in beta so all of the functionality is not complete yet but I have been entering all my data in it. I have not had one bug pop up or any issues yet. I would download the beta and give it a whirl. IT is looking really slick. Of all the bird listing programs, it has the most modern and rebost GUI interface. And speed is phenomenal! Seems like on windows it installs version 4 beside version 3 so it is not one or the other. You can move back an forth between versions.

I did a few trials with ebird and igoterro and realised that I will have to do some sorting of taxonomy, as my BJ 3 seems not to use the latest taxonmy any more (or hasn't applied splits/lumps to my recordings). Igoterra seems to have quite some advanced functions assisting correction of species assignments during imports. ebird also does this, but I found the process and results there rather inconsistent . I'm not sure about Bird Journal regarding this issue. This text here doesn't sound as it offers (yet) functions comparable to igoterra http://support.birdjournal.com/knowledgebase/articles/444445-how-are-taxonomy-updates-handled

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You bring up a great point I have not thought of in regards to taxonomy. Igoterra is more advanced in regards to taxonomy. Birder's Diary and Bird Brain have a reconciliation process for splits and combines when updating the taxonomy as well as importing. I am not sure if the functionality is going to be added in Bird journal Version 4. It might be worth an email support question to inquire about this.

Regarding other functions, I'm quite happy with bird journal, except that it doesn't really indicate lifers. I havn't fully explored igoterra yet, but it seems pretty good.

Click to expand...

That is one reason I am having a difficult time using just one program. There is just not one program that has everything.||

njlarsen said:

I had a fairly up to date system, but even so, I did have some things that needed updating after import to Scythebill. There actually are a couple of items that helps with problems of that sort. (and there may be more I have not discovered yet):
1) select reports and the option to show hybrids/sp observations. Many of these will be things that Scythebill have not fully resolved. When clicking an observation you are given some choices, and for each of these, the range information built in is right there. Often that range info was enough.
2) use the check against checklist option to find out of range observations, some of which will be a bird referred to a pre-split species no longer in range where you saw it.

Obviously if you want to keep your list up to date with both Clements and IOC you would have to go through this twice.

Niels

Click to expand...

Scythebill has a resolve window during import. It did not catch yours? Also, it creates a text file of any sighting that were dropped so they can be manually entered.

Thanks both for your valuable comments!

I see that I need to try a bit more with Scythebill. I imported some of my data and I got this textfile with a long list of records that need correction, but I coulnd't find an easy way to actually do this. I'll look again, also using your hints...

With Bird Journal, I agree that it is very user friendly. My main concern was always how it treats taxonomic issues. I use it since a couple of years, and I presume the world lists were updated from time to time with software updates. But actually I was never asked for decisions regarding splits or lumps, so now I realise that my recordings just were never updated at all. Also I felt that subspecies are not really treated in a rigourous way (sometimes you get totals that sum up species and subspecieses, sometimes species totals, without clear indications when you get what). And I doubt that the newer BJ versions are any better at this at the moment. This is a major bug to me, and this will be the main reasons for me to (probably) switch to something else (I will email them before to ask about this issues).

HantaYo said:

Scythebill ... Also, it creates a text file of any sighting that were dropped so they can be manually entered.

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The text file contained one empty row.

Maybe I need to explain a little more: I was up to date with splits relative to Clements except for a couple of times where the wrong post-split species was assigned to observations from a country that was then caught in the check against checklist option.

I was not up to date with IOC, and as I after import tried to switch to that taxonomy, I then had to go through the processes I described in a previous post.

Niels

dalat said:

With Bird Journal, I agree that it is very user friendly. My main concern was always how it treats taxonomic issues. I use it since a couple of years, and I presume the world lists were updated from time to time with software updates. But actually I was never asked for decisions regarding splits or lumps, so now I realise that my recordings just were never updated at all. Also I felt that subspecies are not really treated in a rigourous way (sometimes you get totals that sum up species and subspecieses, sometimes species totals, without clear indications when you get what). And I doubt that the newer BJ versions are any better at this at the moment. This is a major bug to me, and this will be the main reasons for me to (probably) switch to something else (I will email them before to ask about this issues).

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I strongly recommend checking out Birder's Diary for Taxonomic reasons. It might be what you are looking. The program has IOC/Clements lists that includes subspecies.

I was not up to date with IOC, and as I after import tried to switch to that taxonomy, I then had to go through the processes I described in a previous post.

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Understand now |=)|

Imported my data now to Scythebill and sorted out the taxonomic updates. Took some work, but once understood the logic of the programme, very straight forward. I start to like this programme. It comes along very unconspiciously but is actually a quite powerful piece of software. Does everything I want, better than bird journal ...

dalat said:

Imported my data now to Scythebill and sorted out the taxonomic updates. Took some work, but once understood the logic of the programme, very straight forward. I start to like this programme. It comes along very unconspiciously but is actually a quite powerful piece of software. Does everything I want, better than bird journal ...

Click to expand...

You cannot complain about the price:t:

dalat said:

Imported my data now to Scythebill and sorted out the taxonomic updates. Took some work, but once understood the logic of the programme, very straight forward. I start to like this programme. It comes along very unconspiciously but is actually a quite powerful piece of software. Does everything I want, better than bird journal ...

Click to expand...

I have imported my data to Scythebill today. It took me a couple of hours to hone a script that put my observations into a Scythebill csv file, but then it imported 190,000 observations (19MB) blindingly quick. Only minor hitch was some errors and inconsistencies on my part over dates (about which Scythebill is brutally severe - and who is going to say it is wrong on that?).

I'm not sure I am going to use it regularly, but I am certainly very happy to have it available as an adjunct, and for easy of checking totals in countries by eBird or IOC taxonomies. Now that I have the script figured, and know about the date policy, adding future observations will be trivial. It seems very easy to use once the data are in.

Keith

aegithalos said:

I have imported my data to Scythebill today. It took me a couple of hours to hone a script that put my observations into a Scythebill csv file, but then it imported 190,000 observations (19MB) blindingly quick. Only minor hitch was some errors and inconsistencies on my part over dates (about which Scythebill is brutally severe - and who is going to say it is wrong on that?).

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A quick note: Scythebill does get unhappy importing malformed dates - but "unhappy" here essentially consists of importing all the data it can figure out, and taking the rows of data it can't figure out and stashing it in a new file (so you can clean up the remaining data and import as needed). On the whole, this seemed better to me than simply ignoring bad rows or importing entirely bogus data without warning you. (And it's happy to import sightings even without a date at all, so you could just drop the date column altogether from the remnant data if you want.)

Glad to hear the import went (reasonably) well.

awiner said:

A quick note: Scythebill does get unhappy importing malformed dates - but "unhappy" here essentially consists of importing all the data it can figure out, and taking the rows of data it can't figure out and stashing it in a new file (so you can clean up the remaining data and import as needed). On the whole, this seemed better to me than simply ignoring bad rows or importing entirely bogus data without warning you. (And it's happy to import sightings even without a date at all, so you could just drop the date column altogether from the remnant data if you want.)

Glad to hear the import went (reasonably) well.

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Yes, apologies, I should have mentioned that the file of malformed data was extremely useful in figuring out which were the problem entries and fixing them. It would otherwise have been a nightmare to find them.

The import went very well! Given the amount of data, and the length of time over which it has been accumulated (with creeping inconsistency), it was astonishing ...

Keith

aegithalos said:

Yes, apologies, I should have mentioned that the file of malformed data was extremely useful in figuring out which were the problem entries and fixing them. It would otherwise have been a nightmare to find them.

The import went very well! Given the amount of data, and the length of time over which it has been accumulated (with creeping inconsistency), it was astonishing ...

Keith

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Nothing like a new software import to clean house:t: