How do you keep your lifelist, and what is included? (1 Viewer)

[01101001]

Does my old experience in the field, seeing a bird, changes to any better just because it turned to be a different species now?

I presume one wouldn't pay attention to/look for some of the splits abroad if they weren't crypric species, the way one doesn't usually try to tell the subspecies of commoner birds--both locally and globally--even if they're identifiable in the field.

 

[jurek]

In practice, many these splits are identified only by location, or location trumps whatever subtle differences are said to exist. Which, in the field, turn to be poorly visible or much more variable than books make them look. I call them mapbirds - birds identified by place on the map.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Preparing for a trip currently and during that process, eBird updated. As a result, Intermediate Egret and Gull-billed Tern went from widespread global species I had already seen where I had not noted the subspecies likely on my trip (because my preparation has been poor and chaotic) to full species targets....

Friends have the hang of this world birding lark. I am definitely not sufficiently versed in such things. I am not sure that I will see much difference in either if I connect but eBird certainly helps me a lot in such circumstances despite the relevant Bird Packs not yet being updated.

All the best

Paul

 

[darth bangkok]

IGoTerra lets me keep all my bird lists as well as mammals, fish, insects, plants, etc. Basically all of "life" is on there. There are many functions that automatically organize your lists into regions etc, if that is your kind of thing. There are also many other functions available with the paid versions, like "which country to go to next", family and genus targets, automatically assigning subspecies. You can choose if you want to follow IOC or Clements and your lists will be automatically updated after new versions are released. It's basically the entire package. Only negative I can think of is that the range maps aren't that good - if a species occurs in a country, the entire country gets shaded rather than the actual range.

 

[temmie]

I keep everything online in observation.org . It took me quite some time to enter old data (and Ecuador is still a mess as at the time I only noted down 'East slope or West slope' in my field guide), but once that's done, it's sooo convenient!

I would urge anyone, even those (or especially those) with a small list, to enter their observations in any online system that tried and proven (ebird, inaturalist, observation, igoterra) before listing gets out of hand and you realize (too late) you need something better than a spreadsheet, and you end up with a backlog of sightings that seem too much to import in any online system. Just start with it, now. (ofcourse, if you are confining yourself to e.g. one country or a small part of the World, the needs for an online listing system are quite a bit smaller, but still, it's handy).

Remember (for those who do not want to give up on their privacy) you can enter almost anything either anonymous or just hidden for all others. So you have the benefits of having your data in the cloud (wherever you go) and not sharing your info (people can ofcourse see what you saw, and where, in most online systems, but you can shield that info).

If you think about it as a lister (at least that's my take), you want:
1. a sound taxonomic system (so you can't just put a cross in each fieldguide as they vary in taxonomy);
2. an easy-to-use app to enter data when travelling / in the field; I use observation (Obsmapp android or IObs apple), but I heard good things about e.g. Igoterra and friends who use ebird are saying it's very handy, so just use either one of those.
3. if possible, other species than birds.
4. preferably exact GPS (*) data stored with each sighting. Again, the same apps mentioned before can do this.

(*) Reasons to store data with exact GPS, and this had been discussed on this forum:

• you can go back 20 years and know exactly where you saw a certain bird;
• you can share the info with your birding friends (I mean: how are you listing and finding birds? thanks to the data entries in e.g. ebird by others. So why wouldn't you share your data as well?)
• you're, in a way (depending on how much you enter and how consistent, but even random entries are often considered in some studies) helping science with verifiable data.
• to evaluate whether a geographic split of subspecies into species applies to your sightings.
• To enjoy automatic list updates and, in many cases, to enjoy automatic changes in species (e.g. the moment Inca Jay was split from Green Jay, a moderator changed all of my Green Jays in S-America into Inca Jays). This also greatly helps you to get used to new names (for new or existing species), as field guides get outdated pretty quickly.

ps: there are some reasons why I don't use ebird, and the most important one is the messy GPS data in most ebird entries, but there are some more:

• Ebird taxonomy < IOC imho;
• No other species than birds;
• hotspots = encouraging people to ditch the most valuable part of the data, i.e. exact GPS.

But if there wasn't a better system, I would probably happily use ebird. Ebird shines in the way it represents the data with maps etc. But then again, you can only have data on your maps if you have people using the system, so again, I encourage everyone to enter their data in any of the systems I mentioned above...!

 

[Alexjh1]

I've recently made a proper go at having an organised one so I built an elaborate spreadsheet.

Each of Birds, Mammals, Amphibians, Reptiles, Butterflies and Dragonflies has it's own sheet.

Each page has sheers for whether I've had a photograph, columns for order, family and genus to easily searchable, the location where I first saw one and columns for each country I've birded as an adult where I can mark in a drop down menu either seen, heard only, escapee or n/a.

There's also a page for annual bird lists and an appendix of the very specific category of "species I've only seen as roadkill"

 

[Georgebirds]

Oh, I hadn't thought of keeping a 'dead list' of roadkill or otherwise deceased species - that'd account for my only ever badgers and guillemots!

To answer the original question, my lists are in a really nice hardback journal-style book with metallic floral covers - yearly lists since 2019 starting from the from, life list at the back. There's more room in the middle than years I'm likely to live, so no worries what'll happen when I fill the book!
They're also typed up on my laptop, just in case the paper copy ever got lost, though I don't take it out on birding walks so it's always safe at home for writing neatly into afterwards with clean dry hands, rather than the wet mucky scribblings I'd be making mid-walk, so I'm not sure how I'd ever end up losing it permanently.

Then in January 2023 I decided to give myself a year of more thorough birding, signing up for Ebird and recording every walk and day trip, plus exploring more hotspots and reserves I'd never been to before - to see if I enjoyed taking the hobby that bit further, or just wanted to go back to a more casual year-list keeping. I did enjoy it, so I'm keeping up the Ebird habit, and it's nice having my yearly and life lists in an online form as well. Nice to not have to count them myself, cos the totals are right there. And I especially like the idea of adding a photo for as many species as possible, on the separately curated Dated-Jan-1st-1900 checklist it recommended for building a life list with - even the ones which are pretty terrible shots still give me the satisfaction of filling a gap on the list!

I only count birds seen, no heard-onlys.
I do count birds I didn't realise I was seeing at the time, but find in my photos later - usually things like ducks I can pick out in a zoomed view across water, or mixed gulls in a flock.
Nothing feral or escapee, apart from the naturalised ones like Mandarin Ducks

 

[Owene]

I don’t have a dead list but it would have Pygmy sperm whale and polecat on it and I can’t imagine I’ll ever see the live equivalents

 

[Alexjh1]

I mean, there's currently 4 species on it at it stands; Polecat, Eurasian Otter, Common Raccoon and Japanese Ratsnake. It's not exactly a list I keep fastidiously by any means, but basically just cos it does have the potential to give a bit of picture of things I've missed in places I've been.

 

[bonxie birder]

I use igoterra for my IOC list. That’s my go-to list. But I use eBird/merlin in the field so have that list as well. I use an excel spreadsheet to put the two back to back and see the gaps between the two. Hopefully I convergence is coming between the two.
The only divergence in my British list is the common teal/green-winged teal, so I’ve had to record a great auk where I saw my GWT in Strathclyde to keep my numbers correct.

 

[YuShan]

Until 2016 I kept everything in an Excel sheet. Then when I discovered Scythebill, I moved everything over. That was a lot of work initially, even with my still relatively short list. The problem wasn't the import itself which was fast (I'm quite skilled with Excel) but while importing I discovered quite a few errors / inconsistencies in my data due to out of date field guides, splits/lumps, different names, etc, so I spent a lot of time researching and correcting all that.

After getting all the historic records in, life has become very easy. This has really changed my birding for the better due to the ease of structuring data and the ease of data entry. Now I make a list of every birding day (in the past, I only recorded lifers and made lists of foreign trips). Also, taxonomy updates etc are mostly automatic now so no headaches about that. And really cool to generate all kinds of reports using filters.

On foreign trips I still use a pen and (tiny) paper notebook in the field and enter everything in Scythebill when I get home. I'm not fond of online recording because I want to keep control of my own data and I don't have a phone subscription to use these things in the field anyway (I do carry a smartphone nowadays but only use it offline for maps, fieldguides, sounds and such, and internet access only if I have wifi).

For birding at home, I usually don't carry a phone and don't make notes. I keep short mental checklists (ducks, gulls, tits, corvids, etc) and when I get home the first thing I do is enter them into Scythebill by ticking off from the checklists.