BUBO Listing News
Some enhancements have been made to the Copy List feature within BUBO Listing. As you know, this allows you to create a new list automatically populated based on an existing list, and is a very quick way to create your Birdwatch Magazine life list based upon your BOU life list for example. Well now it is even easier and faster...
Copying Species Details
Before you confirm the copy, you will be asked if you wish to copy all species details to the new list, i.e. including date, location, comments and sensitive status, or just the species itself. For example, if you are creating a county list based on your Britain life list, and you know that most of your first county records were not the same as the ticks on your Britain life list, you will find it quicker to just copy the species itself. If you had done most of your birding within the county and therefore a large proportion of county ticks were actually British lifers as well, you would be better off copying all species details. Whichever option you choose, you will then have less manual edits to do via 'My Lists'.
Copying Between Authorities
One of the powerful features of BUBO Listing is to be able to create lists under different authorities, despite the fact that they use different taxonomies. For example if you have a BOU Britain life list you can create your Birdwatch Magazine life list by copying species as described above. Now this process has been enhanced to tell you exactly which species have not been copied across due to taxonomic differences. For example, a Bean Goose on your BOU list would not be copied to your Birdwatch list, since Birdwatch Magazine instead include the split Taiga Bean Goose and Tundra Bean Goose: BUBO Listing is unable to guess which one(s) you have seen! So BUBO Listing will now list all those species that have not copied, as well as telling you which additional species are available on the new authority, so you can quickly add these if you have seen them.
Note that at first glance, the manner in which some species are dropped from lists when copying from one authority to another may seem non-sensical. For example, copying from a BOU list to a UK400 list will result in Red Grouse being dropped from the list, then Red Grouse will need to be added to the new UK400 list. Although these would appear to be the same species, the discrepancy arises because the UK400 club considers Red Grouse to be Lagopus scotica, distinct from the Willow Grouse Lagopus lagopus of continental Europe. The BOU considers British Red Grouse to be the subspecies Lagopus lagopus scotica. Such distinctions may seem unimportant in a British context. However, maintaining them is vital when considering copying lists across a wider geographical area, such as from Britain to the Western Palearctic or to the World.
With these two changes, there is now no excuse for you not to add some new lists to BUBO Listing!
It is now possible to download lists from BUBO Listing for your own records. Downloads can be done in text (tab-delimited or comma-separated) or spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel) format.
You will see the following download icons when you view a list in detail: just click on one and either open the file directly or choose a folder on your computer to save the downloaded file.
You can download either the list itself, or the target species for the list.
This isn't just restricted to your own lists: you can view someone else's list and download that. This is great for doing some analysis, e.g. what has Fred Bloggs seen in Norfolk this year that I haven't seen?
If you are downloading your own list then it is recommended that you do it from within My Lists - this way the details of sensitive records will be included. If you download your own list from the publicly viewable View All Lists option the sensitive species will be suppressed.
We are delighted to have been awarded 'Website of the month' in the June issue of Birdwatch Magazine.
See the magazine for the write-up. They conclude by saying "as more and more birders add on their individual lists, this will become a fascinating and compelling site to visit". So thanks to all those birders who have already added lists, and please continue to add lists and encourage your fellow birders to join the BUBO Listing community!
BUBO Listing now has the ability to create one list based on copying an existing list. This makes it much quicker to enter additional lists once you have your first list created. For example, if you have created your British Life List via the normal checklist entry method, you could then create a copy of it as your Norfolk county list. This will copy all records across to your Norfolk county list, leaving you with just the task of deleting (or updating) any invalid records, e.g. species only seen outside of Norfolk.
The feature also allows you to copy lists across authorities, e.g. create your UK400 life list based on a copy of your BOU life list. You would then need to add (via 'Add Species to List') those records where taxonomy and acceptance varies between BOU and UK400.
This can be quite a complex feature, so please read the detailed instructions and examples under 'Creating A List'.
The 'Copy List' feature is available as an option on the 'Create New List' page when logged in.
As usual, if you have any comments please Contact Us.
It is now possible to view the complete species lists for each of the supported authorities. This also includes notes added by BUBO Listing to provide extra detail behind taxonomic decisions and acceptable records.