Björn Bergenholtz
(former alias "Calalp")
I got this e-mail today, that might be worth to read, for all "listers" ...
Björn
Hopefully of some help/use?BIRDQUEST E-NEWSLETTER 31
[...]
We have some urgent and important news for listers!
The question right now for HBW Alive users is how to keep all your bird lists after it is no longer 'alive'?
We have learnt that HBW Alive will transition in early 2020 to become Birds of the World and indeed its MyBirding platform is already no longer accepting new data. Premium HBW Alive users have the option of moving their MyBirding data to eBird, the citizen science platform of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
My Birding uses BirdLife taxonomy and eBird uses the Clements taxonomy. Obviously, the major differences between HBW Alive and eBird taxonomy will have profound impact on lists, which can be significantly difficult to handle.
In addition, it is not possible to move to IOC World Bird List taxonomy, despite the fact that IOC taxonomy is becoming increasingly popular amongst world birders.
iGoTerra is another option for birders that would like to move from HBW Alive to IOC, or even Clements!
BirdQuest and iGoTerra have a long-term partner agreement, where iGoTerra provides all our trip checklists based on the latest IOC taxonomy. Our partner iGoTerra specializes in wildlife listing management and is widely used by top listers and bird tour operators around the world, as it offers both IOC and Clements taxonomies.
Besides keeping their bird observations, lists and photos on iGoTerra, most users also use it for keeping track of all the other species groups as well: mammals, dragonflies, butterflies, fish and plants etc.
For users of HBW Alive, iGoTerra provides a tool to help with recent splits and lumps, to facilitate migration of personal data, and thereby moving to either Clements or IOC taxonomy.
In iGoTerra, users decide what information they want to enter or display in public. They could very well just keep a list of ticks in the world, or may want to enter every possible details for the observations, or any possible combination. Users choice! They also decide if they want to appear in public Rankings, or if they prefer to remain anonymous. Any observation can also be public or private.
And it’s not a matter of choosing between list management and usefulness, between iGoTerra or eBird: any iGoTerra user can export the data deemed relevant to eBird to contribute to citizen science. So why not have the best of both worlds?
Time is critical though! HBW Alive will close their services in February 2020, and users need to extract their data before it closes…
We would like to wish you a Happy and bird filled 2020 whichever listing platform you choose to follow!
The Birdquest Team
Björn