World list

Hello all

I notice the site does not have many individual world lists published, is this perhaps because the time it would take to enter all records is putting people off? I understand the logic of location and date information being required for UK rarities, etc, but is it really necessary to fill out an individual field for each species of bird seen in the world? Would more people not be encouraged to submit their lists if they could merely add the number? I'm not saying this should be the case for all lists, I was quite happy to fill out individual fields for my UK/Eire list as its interesting to have transparency and it was also not too time consuming, its a very small list!

On the other hand my world list is around 6400 species and I just do not have the time to enter this information. Plus as a world list is based on trust a figure is as good as a whole list of species. after all who knows if I have actually seen Kagu or Wallace's Standardwing, apart from the people who were with me at the time, of course.

Just a thought, I definitely think more people would contribute to the world list if just the figure was required rather than the manual entry of each species of bird. There could even be lists which deal with individual taxonomy, Clements for instance, which is the list I use.

Cheers and good birding, its neary autumn, Scilly, Shetland? Please no Fair Isle!!

Thanks Malcolm. Actually, there is no need to enter location and date info for world lists. We've set the system only to require these for any species flagged as "rare" on a given authority. For British lists, this is BBRC only. For world lists, we haven't set any species as rare, so folk can simply go through and tick the boxes.

I realise that even this could take a fair amount of time (although if you've seen 6400 species, propelling you into first place on BUBO world lists, you're unlikely to generate huge amounts of sympathy!) Two partial solutions though - firstly, you can enter them a few at a time (using the batch edit mode, you can go back to wherever you got to previously) - or secondly, we have a list import facility where you can send us an existing list, ideally in Excel, and for a small fee we'll load it in for you.

The way we have BUBO set up is that you can't just enter a total; all lists are automatically counted up from the species that have been entered. Having our lists as real collections of individual species records means that we (or you, or anyone) can do much more with the list entries, such as working out their top targets (i.e. which species are they missing that the largest proportion of other folk have seen)?

Cheers

Andy

P.S. We also have a plan to extend world listing to other authorities, such as IOC, but this requires us to have a little bit of spare time available first. However, having full lists entered should enable us to be able to do a large part of the translation of lists between different world authorities in due course. One day!

Hi Malcolm
Keeping my paltry list (3.4% of yours ) up to date is tough enough, with adding stuff to various lists here, on Birdtrack (important one) and Birdjournal (Great birding software), so I do sympathise.

But there are other sites that deal in just numbers, I find it far more interesting to be able to see which birds other listers have seen and NOT seen.

At the moment you're ranked 39th in the World at Surfbirds, envious congratulations on that one, that would be 37th if you update that to 6400.

I'll never get close to that figure, but I may one day see a bird you havent seen yet. Dates and times would be even more interesting, but that would be asking rather a lot :woohoo:

Next stop 7000

Good Birding
Phil

I agree Phil, the value of BUBO is in providing the list of species, not just the total number, and hence allowing analysis, such as missing target birds.

Surfbirds provides a place for comparing list totals, particularly for World lists. I come 227th! Not sure BUBO is really so good for world lists - it is better for regional/country lists, where comparison with others makes more sense. A list of target birds seems a bit silly on the global scale - but at the WP scale (for instance) makes a lot of sense.

And clearly BUBO is the best place for competitive yearlisting, for those keen on such a thing, as it allows for a much greater degree of transparency between competitors.

John

Hi Malcolm

As Phil and John have noted, the fact that all species have to be entered certainly makes browsing lists enjoyable on BUBO Listing. And although it does take some time I found that, even with my paltry World list, it was fun adding it in because it triggered lots of happy birding memories!

Andy mentioned that we can import lists for you , although since it's a bit tedious we do charge a small fee. However as our first 6000+ lister I'm happy to waive this for you - if you can follow the instructions on the List Import Service page and email us your World list then we'll get it live in a few days time. (I did make this offer to an 8000+ lister recently, although am yet to receive their list!)

Great idea! I first came upon the IOC list shortly after the BOU adopted it. I then find that the world list on this site is by another authority

Tony Whitehead

Target UK 300, 30 to go
Target World 1000 - 356 to go (IOC)

P.S. We also have a plan to extend world listing to other authorities, such as IOC, but this requires us to have a little bit of spare time available first. However, having full lists entered should enable us to be able to do a large part of the translation of lists between different world authorities in due course. One day!
Andy Musgrove

Administrator

Hi All

Thanks to everyone who posted replies, I didnt realise you could merely tick the birds on BUBO's world list so may eventually get round to doing it! I still dont understand why anyone would spend time trawling through anothers world list, but we are indeed all different. I do think its fun to look at more regional lists, especially those dealing with UK/Eire totals, where the level of competition is far greater, and I applaud the transparency here. it would be nice if more people contributed, where are those big listers who we all know are out there but not on this list?!

Also thanks to BUBO admin for offering to upload my list free of charge. Unfortunately my list is held on Bird Database and hard copied in Clements so I guess if I want it on there I may have to trawl through and do it, but where to find the time?

Cheers and good birding

Malcolm