Bird Journal Reviews
The Quest (if you are not interested in the preamble, go straight to ‘The Software’).
Like most birders or all-round students of Nature, I was looking for a piece of software to house all my records and photos of everything from Birds through Moths to Moses & Lichens. And like others, I probably took a very similar root in my quest for the one database that satisfied all my requirements.
This is how it goes; first you look for free Wildlife databases, in the hope that out there someone has seen fit to provide a piece of freeware that will fit the bill. But there is not, you see the trouble with creating a half decent database that provides all the aspects and tools that your average Nature Geek is looking for takes time and effort and a whole lot of rebuilds tweaks and updates to get it just right.
After being constantly disappointed with the poor and ugly offerings, you look for a generic or customisable database in the vein hope of altering it enough to fulfil your needs, which it dose not and so this route too is a dead end.
OK, you say to yourself, I will have to put my hands up and fork out a small amount for some shareware and maybe spend £10 or so. By the end of two weeks of trying out the free trials you have downloaded, you realise that you could have saved yourself so much time and effort if you were not so tight (and believe me…I am tight!).
With a new acceptance that you will have to layout some cash, you start your hunt in earnest. The starting point should always be independent reviews, what are others saying about the different wildlife databases and which one provides what they need, which brings us to the next criteria. What really are your needs, are you just a hobby record keeper or do you want to provide an addition to the ever growing accumulation of information on the internet through online databases like eBird?
After reading reviews and asking the relevant questions I finally hit upon Bird Journal 2.3, and boy am I glad I did.
The Software
The first thing to say about Bird Journal is that there are 3 Editions for the PC. Local Edition, Continent Edition and Complete Edition; something for all needs and all budgets. I opted for the Complete Edition in the end.
There is a free trial version which is based on the Complete Edition. This has only two major restrictions, 1, you can only enter 15 new entries and 2, the import function is disabled.
The online ordering process is quick and easy and you are sent an immediate link for the download of the software by email, (there is an option to order the CD Copy at the same time). Once you have downloaded the package and installed it, you enter the registration details and off you go.
The first thing you notice about Bird Journal is how pleasing to the eye it is, nothing is scraggy or ill thought out, there are no buttons and frames overlaying each other in an ugly and haphazard way, which you find in so many other databases. Even the addition of extra recording tick boxes or dropdowns that you can add (we will come to these later) do not phase the layout of the Species entry form it just rearranges it’s self to seamlessly fit them in. There are two skins for all Editions, Default and Classic Blue, I stuck with the Default.
It is worth mentioning at this point, that there is a sample database in the programmes folder that allows you to see how entries will look before you start, it is well worth taking a quick peak at this to get the hang of navigation.
Getting Stuck in!
OK, you now want to start entering all your old records scattered about the place in tatty rain stained notebooks. Setting up your locations and editing your checklists could not be easier and as the software (Complete Edition) comes with a whole heap of Bird lists from all over the world, you can get going in no time.
Setting your locations is such a piece of cake and has a built in hierarchy function so you can add locations within locations later (see tutorial here). When entering sightings using the new entry button you choose one of your locations using two dropdowns: Country and Location respectively and they will stay as default for that set of entries when the Next Sighting button is clicked, this is good when entering a species count from a particular trip to any given site. After you have entered all the sightings for that particular entry you just click Add Entry and you are done.
Staying with the Species Entry Form; if you have imported checklists for other wildlife, like Butterflies (Complete Edition), sightings for a particular animal can be entered while entering bird sightings, it dose not matter if you are putting in bird counts and you have Red Admiral stuck in the middle of your notes, you just use the checklist dropdown in the entry form and add the butterfly or any other animal (as long as you have a checklist for that group). When you are finished and click add entries, the software places all in their respective groups.
Adding Photos
This has to be my favourite function of Bird Journal. Not only is adding photos for any given sighting/record a breeze, it also creates thumbnails automatically, so that when you view the record later the small photo gallery sits smartly between species information and the Graphs section of the viewing panel. There is no restriction on quantity of photos, apart from the space on your hard drive.
Addition of Entry criteria
If you feel that some form of information is missing when recording a sighting, you have the ability to add criteria to the form. Just as an example, I like to keep a note of which sighting is the first for that species in any given year, or if that sighting is a lifer. Simple, just click the options button and then either, the Sighting Properties or the Entry Properties button, (depending where on the form you would like it) and add a dropdown list. I called this particular dropdown ‘Lists’ and gave it two values: YT (Year Tick) and LT (Life Tick). I also added a drop down for large counts with a + option e.g. 500+, good for Wader counts at particular estuaries.
Addition of Checklists.
As I said earlier, Bird Journal comes with default lists (how many depends on Edition). If you wish to add a checklist, you have two options: 1, import a list, or 2, create a list. The first option is again easy-peasy, just look for a checklist online (Bird Journal forum has a section for this very thing), and save it to your downloads folder or anywhere of your choice and then use the Edit Checklists button followed by the import button to bring up the familiar windows open panel, select the file and click open, this will import the checklist and it will show in your list. Another nice touch at this point, is the safeguard that the file is not yet fixed in Bird Journal until you hit the update button, so until update is clicked you can reverse the import by just clicking cancel and clicking No to save changes, and that is it. You can of course edit the title of said checklist and even assign it specific locations, or change the language.
Creating a checklist is simple too. Just click New in the checklist window and enter the required criteria, assign it locations and families and you are nearly there. I say nearly because you have to enter at least one species to the checklist for it to function but apart from that you can dip in as you please to add species to it.
Import Export
This function is probably the one that the more serious records keeper is looking for in a database, and here Bird Journal excels (no pun intended). I will not go into this function too deeply as the best way to see how it works is to watch the cracking tutorial video here. I will just say however, it took me less than 2 minutes to import my previous records from eBird to Bird Journal, and then the same to export from Bird Journal to eBird. Now I just export to eBird from Bird Journal with the daily count from my home patch.
Downsides
So what are the downsides or cons to Bird Journal. Well I am hard pressed to find any actual downsides or cons, but there are a couple of things I would rather not happen but because the people at Bird Journal have provided a section on the forum called Feature Request it is easy to at least provide them with functionality ideas.
Two that come to mind and I will probably suggest these are: 1, it would be nice if the default layout of the directory on the left of the database was shown as closed i.e. when you click on the species section at the bottom the directory shows with all the wildlife categories open which is fine if you only have, lets say birds in the database, but I have already got Birds, Moths, Butterflies, Dragonflies, and Fungi, with a lot of entries for each, which produces a lot of scrolling. If the directory was shown as closed with just the categories showing it lets you open the one you want to work with. Of course you can bring up just the species you want to work with in the viewing screen on the right by using the provided search dropdowns which include, Category, Family, Species, and other criteria.
And the only other function that bugs, is not having a default option on dropdowns. For instance, I have created a dropdown for Observers, as my wife will be entering records too. Lest say I am entering a daily count for just me, after I have entered the first sighting and click Next sighting, it would be nice if my name was still showing in the dropdown for that set of entries but it defaults back to the name of the dropdown in this case ‘(Observers)’, I personally would like to have it function so that, when you go to the next sighting it keeps the observer from the last sighting until you change it and then keeps that observer and so on. Although I have these small gripes, it is evident for anyone who wishes to visits the Bird Journal forum, that it is these sort of ideas and features that Bluebird Technology are all too willing to assimilate into future releases.
Summary
I have only been using this database for 3 days and already I have mastered the entire functionality of it, including the Import Export functions. I do not think I have ever been able to do that before.
It is good looking, glitch free and the support from the Bird Journal team has been top.
If you are going to treat yourself this Christmas, then this should be a consideration.
Five Stars!
Information on differing features of Local and Continent Editions was provided by Bluebird Technology.
Read the full review on Birdforum.net.
Posted: Nov 2011 | Reviewed by: Simon Booton-Mander
"NEARLY ALL BIRDERS like to keep lists, whether competitively or for their eyes only, and Bluebird Technology’s Bird Journal aims to tap into this. Listing software isn’t new and there are even online sites that are free to use so what makes Bird Journal different?
I downloaded the trial version to test the software. The functionality is the same as the paid-for version, but you can only have one entry. I used my list from a trip to a local park on 1 January. The program is very easy to install and to use. First you add the location (or use one you’ve previously added) and choose a checklist. Next you insert the date and time of the visit. You can also include weather conditions and other notes.
Adding a species couldn’t be easier. Just start typing the name in the relevant box and the software will predict the species, then select the right one. You can then add numbers seen or gender. There are tick boxes for heard only, interesting or seen well, as well as another box for your notes. Click next sighting to save your record and start on the next one. You can also include photos.
A summary gives an overview of all your entries, each of which can be displayed as a taxonomic list and can be amended or deleted as necessary. Once big advantage over the online sites I’ve used is that your data can be displayed in graph form, including species counts for the year, the month or a particular location. Family distribution is an interesting one, showing that I had seen more ducks, swans and wildfowl and ‘other’ than anything else.
There versions of the program are available: Local (£35), containing lists for one country; Continent (£49), with taxonomies and lists for a whole continent; and Complete with checklist for most of the world. You can also create custom checklists – something else I’ve not seen in online programs.
Overall, this is a very easy-to-use program with a nice user interface. The graphs and customisable checklists are a great addition, and because it’s on your computer you don’t’ have to rely on having an internet connection."
Posted: April 2011 | Reviewed by: Rebecca Armstrong at BirdWatch Magazine
When it comes to keeping my personal bird records I have never quite entered the modern world, only going as far as keeping my overall lists on a couple of spreadsheets. I have boxes of field notebooks gathering dust in a cupboard somewhere, a nice neat line of page-a-day diaries going back to 1975, and various cardboard folders of holiday checklists and tour reports. And when I need to look anything up it can take hours.
All that should change now. A few months ago someone suggested I should look at Bird Journal, a relative newcomer to the field of bird recording software. A quick check of the trial version available on the Bluebird Technology website (bluebirdtechnology.com) raised my interest. I soon realised that much of what is in my many notebooks and diaries would be far better organised and easier to access if it was in Bird Journal: I just wish I had it (and a computer of course) in 1975.
Bird Journal is available in three versions, local (£35), continent (£49) and complete (£69). I am using the complete one which as well as covering the whole world includes additional features not available in the two smaller versions such as creating your own checklists for birds and other wildlife. The local version is based upon a single country.
Online purchase and installation are both very straightforward, and once installed everything is easy to understand and use. There is a users’ manual included if you ever need to consult it. Essentially you enter details of a site that you go birding at and then you enter details of the birds you see each visit. You can choose to include numbers and comments. Not everyone will want to use all of the features that are available and so it is possible to customise the entry displays somewhat. I have hidden the 'good view' button but kept 'heard only' and 'important sighting' for example. The software quickly recognises a species name as you enter it and is refreshingly unfussy about hyphenated names and so on.
The world version includes checklists for every country. The main taxonomic reference is Clements but where individual countries differ from Clements it is easy to switch from one to the other to cover all the species you need. The checklists are not perfect: I found that the India national list excludes the Andaman and Nicobar islands for example, and a few species I saw in Turkey last year were inexplicably missing. These errors are in the sources used, and as such are not directly attributable to the production team who seem keen to learn of any similar anomalies and can update checklists yearly with each major version release: in the meantime it is possible to amend lists yourself using the 'Edit Checklist' facility. I would like to have seen the IOC taxonomy available as well as Clements: this may be included in a future release.
The whole system is set up on a hierarchical system so that if I entered a set of records for say Swithland Reservoir then it would automatically update my entries for Leicestershire, British, European and World entries for that day, week, year and lifetime lists. Very impressive on the whole, but again I have an odd minor niggle such as Turkey being classed as Europe. The site-hierarchy leads up to continents and there is currently no facility for biogeographical regions that cross continental boundaries such as the Palearctic: this may be addressed in a future release.
Bird Journal is clearly designed to be used after each day's birding and performs admirably if that is what you do. I tend to enter a lot of my records as lists for trips and sites rather than for days, and there is then a problem in that the date displayed is irrelevant. I have not found a way round this but the production team have noted it as a 'feature request', and I just ignore the displays telling me that I saw 210 species on one day in Turkey when in fact it was a two week trip.
There is much more to Bird Journal than I have as yet used. Stored data can be displayed in graphs that will become more meaningful as more records are entered over time. Photographers (of which I am not one) have the facility to store unlimited images in the system's gallery.
In general I find this an excellent and very useful product from a company that are keen to listen to comments and develop their service accordingly. I know two local birders who have been using Bird Journal much longer than I have and they are both very pleased with what it does.
Read the review on Surfbirds.com.
Posted: Feb 2011 | Reviewed by: Steve Lister - County Recorder for Leicestershire and Rutland Ornithological Society and co-author of the recent (2009) avifauna.
...The imaging side of things is great, it stores them as small compressed files, you can view them in a dated gallery, so all your years images are there. I was a little worried about this, the size of back-up and all that, but fear not, I have loaded over 350 images onto the database so far and when I changed PC the other week, the new back-up was less than 30 seconds all in. I currently keep my back up on a pen drive, no problems restoring either if you change PC's like I recently did.
Now the real sweet thing about this software is the way it handles locations, its all about heiracy. Let me try and explain, I bird the UK, I keep a UK list, I also bird in various counties throughout the UK, I am interested in my regional list, which is the four counties of the West Midlands Bird Club, hang on I am also interested in listing for Blithfield Reservoir, I could go on...so
Using the the heiracy of UK-WMBC-Staffordshire-Blithfield I can see my list for UK, WMBC, Staffs and Blithfield, so apply that to Warks, W Mids and Worc's I now can search on my WMBC only list if I want to, also Staffs, Warks and W Mids and Worc's only too...fantastic. Of course in the reporting section (Graphs) I can easily work out my individual site lists too.
So below shows how I put Staffs in the WMBC region and then used heiracy further for invidual sites, take for instance Barton Under Needwood, Captains Lane was were my first Staffs Cattle Egret was, I wanted to record the location as it was, not just a town, so I used heiracy. So thinking about it, you can take it further if you wish, take Blithfield for instance I could spilt it down into areas, UK - WMBC - Staffs - Blithfield Reservoir - Tad Bay or Deep End etc etc etc. Great for patchwork, the data it provides is great.
Notice how I have split Cannock Chase up, at the end of the day if I want to know many species I have seen on the Chase I just click Cannock Chase, it brings them all in.
...
You can also download at no extra cost the British Butterfly and Dragonfly lists too, you can can invent your own lists too, no like our local stringers I mean you can input a new bird list, lets say the WMBC list and work from that. It also lists all sub-species and they plan to keep the software up to date taxonomically, if fact I have already had an update since I had it.
...
Read the full review on Blurred Birding.
Posted: Jan 2011 | Reviewed by: Martyn Yapp
Bird Journal has revolutionised my wildlife record keeping. This software is simplicity itself to use, but offers a vast array of features to keep even the most meticulous note-taker happy.
I must admit my notes in the past were always a little bit of a chore to write up. I’d come in from an afternoon in the field and the last thing on my mind is writing up my notes and recording what I’ve seen. What I needed was something to make this recording process as simple as possible. I’ve flirted with free software and spreadsheets, along with a good old fashioned notebook, but finally I decided to part with some money and buy some software (why spend all this money on equipment to watch birds then try and scrimp and save when it comes to keeping records of what I’ve seen). Bird Journal offers a free demo database download, as well as a trial version limited to a few sightings; and so I was able to try before I bought.
What impressed me most was the thoughtfulness that has gone into designing a product that’s easy and effortless to use. Simply click a button to add a new entry and fill in as much or as little detail about the trip as you like – location, date, time, weather and notes are all there for you to fill in easily. You can also customize the properties to add in your own fields if you want to record other information.
When it comes to adding details of the species recorded on the trip you have two options: either start typing the name of the species in the “Species” box and Bird Journal will auto-suggest species for you to select from, or alternatively just use the checklist option, which can be filtered by location, to give a really speedy way of selecting from the species you’ve seen at a particular site. With each species you can easily add other details such as counts, gender and other properties (again fully customizable).
Each location/site you want to record at can be set up beforehand, within a hierarchy too, so viewing records in a particular county is effortless. In fact, once you’ve added your records, the wealth of information you can get out of bird journal is amazing. First and last dates per species, for counties or sites are a doddle to see, and it’s easy to pull out graphs of sightings data. The software even offers the facilities to graph intra- and inter- year population data, I can’t wait to add more records and see what comes out.
What’s more you can also add your photo’s directly to each sighting or location, and then display them directly in the software by species, location or date. This means I’ll no longer be hunting around when I want to review a certain moth or bird, I just select that species from the gallery and I can review all the photo’s I’ve ever taken of that species and, yes, I did just mention Moths, because that’s the beauty of the Complete Edition of the software - you can add your own checklists. This really unleashes the full capability of the software and allows you to record anything you see, not just birds.
There are a few areas where the software could be improved, such as the ability to import checklists from spreadsheets, or store sound and video, but Christine at Bluebird Technology assures me these are all features that will be arriving soon. Christine, and the users of the Bird Journal forums, offer excellent support for the software and are generating new checklists for use with the Complete version of the software regularly – to save you the hassle.
I would really recommend you take a look at their website (www.bluebirdtechnology.com) and download the free trial or free demo software, and explore the full potential of what Bird Journal can offer – whether you’re a casual birder or a wildlife journeyman you won’t be disappointed.
Read the review on Erewash Valley Wildlife.
Posted: Sept 2010 | Reviewed by: Chris Love
"I have just spent the past month exploring the virtues of some new Birding Journal software I was kindly sent. I must say that I have been highly impressed by it and have found it an excellent addition to my Bird Recording. It is very easy to use and self-explanatory and allows one to methodically record each and every species of bird, mammal, butterfly, insect of flower that one has seen - hugely impressive.
For example, after adding my bird species of today and 1,878 entries down the line, at-a-glance I can see that I have now recorded 153 species during that time, that my highest day tally was 9 August with 97 species and that I have recorded 104 species in the past 7 days and 94 in the past calendar week.
It also has a mass of other functions and with each new location added, it automatically works out a site list and a cumulative county total, as well as constantly updating a calendar year total and a Life count.
There are five main function utilities, with ENTRIES (your personal sightings), GRAPHS (a drop down menu of graphs showing Year Species Count, Monthly counts, Locations tallies and Checklist counts), GALLERY (all of your uploaded images), SPECIES (all of the data you require on each and every species you have seen) and LOCATION (where you have seen each species).
Although the principle taxonomy used is that of Clements (World) and BOU (Britain), it can be easily customised allowing one to add in any list of one's choice, including that of the UK400 Club (full Western Palearctic Listing complete with all sub-species) and other custom lists such as those of British Butterflies or Moths or Mammals or a massive selection of country lists.
Bluebird Technology also offer a very helpful and useful birder's forum, where members can share lists and discuss add-ons and new functions and I have been customising a new database concentrating on Rare Birds recorded in Britain and Ireland. This software is revolutionary and adds a new dimension to your everyday birding exploits.
The software is available from http://www.bluebirdtechnology.com/ and there is a 15% discount on all orders up to 31 August. The Order Hotline number is 0845 094 6012 and is manned Monday-Friday from 0900-1700 hours"
Read the review on uk400clubrarebirdalert.
Posted: Aug 2010 | Reviewed by: Lee G R Evans - British Birding Association UK400 Club, Rare Bird Alert Blog, Rare Birds Magazine, Ornithological Consultant and Conservationist
"Even if your birdwatching is strictly of the casual, stroll-in-the-country-and-take-some-bins type, there’s a lot of additional pleasure to be gained from keeping a decent record of what you see.
Logging sightings in some sort of detail also helps teach you the finer points of ID and fieldcraft, and gets you thinking about exactly when and where to see particular species. And, as we explain on page 20, your bird records can actually play a significant role in conservation.
For many of us, this has meant keeping battered notebooks filled with scrawled observations, hasty sketches, rough maps, with maybe the odd found feather taped in there for good measure.
Now I’m not for a moment suggesting you consign the notebook to history, but Bluebird Technology’s new version of Bird Journal, for PCs, perfectly complements your written notes.
In essence, it allows you to create a database of your birding life, with sightings logged by date and site. It goes without saying that it makes finding your record and description of, say, “that Red-rumped Swallow about eight years ago”, an awful lot easier than leafing through the tea-stained pages of a book you’ve had to dig out of your spare room.
The fact you can add photos to the entries is a boon – not only does it help you relive those sightings, if you’re lucky, but it’s also a good way of tidying up those massed folders of old photos littered around your PC’s desktop.
There’s a database of checklists for most countries of the world, and you can also create your own bird and wildlife checklists, and share and download checklists with other users of Bird Journal.
Above all, it;s easy to use. As with the original version of this software, you don't need to be any kind of IT expert to use it, with navigation pleasingly intuitive and straightforward. Time-saving is the keynote throughout - you can imagine yourself taking 10 minutes over a cuppa at the end of the day to transfer the day's haul from notebook to PC, beacue it's never a chore.
There are three editions - Local, Continent and Complete - depending on just how far afield your birdwatching takes you, and they're priced at £35, £49 and £69 accordingly. It's a small price to pay, in the long run, for making sure your birding memories don't fade."
Posted: Aug 2010 | Reviewed by: Bird Watching Magazine
"Over the years I have tried many different software programmes that record your bird sightings… some apparently basic and others sophisticated with voice recognition and so forth. In all cases I’ve given up on them as they were too complicated for me to use and I have, instead, kept my records on an excel spreadsheet.
I tend only to keep country lists except in the UK where I keep a record of birds seen in my county and a ‘year list’ for the UK… these come together in my one major list – of all the birds I’ve seen oin the world, down to subspecies level. So far I have not found a programme that does what I want as I am not about to keep lists of every outing and even on overseas trips I keep locations only for a trip report and delete those keeping a simple list for that country.
However, I have been using a pretty new product that certainly bridges the gap when it comes to keeping country lists… Bird Journal [ http://www.bluebirdtechnology.com ] is easy to use and not only makes for simple country lists but adds them to a world list, moreover, it can be a subbie level too! When you start writing a list you simply start to type the birds name and after a couple of letters you will be offered a list, of course, the more you type the shorter the list gets and you can select a name at any time and add it to your list.
What more can I say… it is just an easy to use attractive piece of software and an ideal Christmas gift for the starter or experienced birder 99% of whom will keep lists of some sort.
Other taxa are on offer too and this will be extended over time as most of us will note the mammals we see and many birders have an interest in butterflies, dragonflies and bees etc.
This is the only software I have ever persisted with and the only one I HAVE EVER FELT ABLE TO THOROUGHLY RECOMMEND… Of course it will not suit everyone, but if, like me, you are ever so slightly technically challenged I would bet that this will suit you down to the ground!"
Fatbirder Recommended
Posted: Dec 2009 | Reviewed by: FatBirder
"Having a look around the net for a decent review of any kind of birding software proved completely fruitless for me. I noticed a fair few people were having the same problem. Seeing as I really wanted a good piece of software to use for birding, I thought I would just grab a few different titles that were available and try them out for myself. The best looking, cheapest and therefore most attractive software I could find was Bird Journal, so here is my review of it.
Note: I am not a professional ornithologist or even a jet setting world traveling amateur. I am an average Joe that really likes birds. Birding, in one way or another, is something that I do every single day. Please let me know if there is anything else you would like to know about.
Purchase and Trial
One of the great things to come out of the growth in popularity and use of the internet has been the birth of the ‘trial version’. Today, this is an expected must have for any software developer wanting to market their product. Gone are the days when a developer can make a pretty box, run a few ads and watch the customers line up. For whatever reason, this has escaped the major producers of birding software. Thankfully, Bluebird Technology have taken the opportunity to try before you buy to the next level. Offered on the website is a fully-functional trial version that anyone can download without any kind of registration. The trial comes with sample database to let you explore the programs feature set without having to enter your data. Of course, if you wish to enter your data, that option is also open to you, albeit limited to 15 entries.
Once you have sampled enough and decided you like the program, the purchase process is straightforward. The program comes in three versions although this just relates to taxonomic licensing. The version I have is the local edition with the up to date 2008 Christidis and Boles taxonomy. Bluebird go on to offer a 60 day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the product for any reason. You can’t really beat that from a customer service perspective!
The Program
Installation and setting up
From download to first entry, this program was a breeze. It comes with a PDF user guide but I doubt you will find a need for it. The way the program is laid out, you will be able to figure it out just by poking around the interface. There are no strange nuances or unnecessary features like the talking parrot with speech recognition in Birder’s Diary, it is straightforward and is all about getting the job done.
I had no installation problems whatsoever and that program did not crash on me once. I haven’t got any strange error messages and even the uninstall (I reinstalled it to test) was smooth and without hiccup..."
Read the full review on northqldbirder.
Posted: Dec 2009 | Reviewed by: Sebastian Maderak
"This is the first in a series of reviews on software that has been created to help bird watchers identify, or keep track of the birds they have seen. There are not too many program out there, but since the creation of the I-Phone by Apple there are many applications which provide bird identification and species listing developed for the I-Phone/I-Pod Touch. There are also several programs available for the PC and even some for Mac computers.
Bird Journal is a program for the PC, as well as for Macs running windows as an operating system. Blue Bird Technology the creators of Bird Journal is planning on releasing a true Mac version, sometime in 2010.
Bird Journal is a piece of software, which allows the user to keep track of birds they have seen and keeps track of quite a bit of information. The information that can be entered includes name of bird species as well as the number of that species you have seen on a given day. This information can then be seen on graphs that the program creates and the graphs offer many options as well.
You can see graphs of how many species of birds you have seen in a year and also the number of species seen by month. There are even graphs of bird populations seen in monthly and yearly numbers, or show how many species you have seen in a specific location.
The lists of birds in Bird Journal range from AOU birds to all of the birds of the world. These lists are not free; however, and a single list with the software will cost $45 to register, while the program including the world list will cost $85, which is not a bad price for something like this, as there are other programs that cost more that offer the same thing. They also offer the chance to upgrade the version that you have, but they do not provide pricing information on that service and I am not sure how it is done.
Compared to another program I will post about soon, Bird Journal may not seem to be that powerful of a program, as you cannot create new Taxinomical lists, or anything like that. However; there are things that Bird Journal does that the other program does not do and I have found it to be just as powerful of a program, with plenty of options and very easy to use.
There are a few things I would like to see in the future in Bird Journal, such as the ability to handle separate databases without having to rename a file, which I think would be a good idea, for people who want to keep a personal database and one for doing research, or some other professional birding studies. I would also like to see the ability to import CSV files created by other bird listing software, especially if done with something such as the I-Phone, or I-Pod Touch, so that listings from those program could be imported, without having to type it all in Bird Journal. I guess some of it is nitpicking, but I think such things would be of use to others.
Overall Bird Journal is a wonderful program and the ease of use is wonderful. I know I will be using it for a long time to come as I have become converted to this program and I think that it is worth a look at, by those who want to keep track of their bird sightings on their computers. Blue Bird Technology’s website, can be found at http://www.bluebirdtechnology.com . Go and check out the program, as a trial version is available from their site."
Read the review on Bird and Wildlife World.
Posted: Dec 2009 | Reviewed by: Bird and Wildlife World
