Group lists are ideal for a local group wishing to document the full species list, including historical records, for their recording area, whether this is a formal society or an informal recording group of watchers at a patch. They are also great for a few friends who regularly travel together and wish to keep an overall list from their trips, or even tour companies (like Bubo Birding!)

We introduced group lists before and have now made them even better! There are two options for creating a group list:
- The preferred approach is to use a group account, e.g. Dawlish Warren Recording Group, Swilly Listers. Sign up as usual but select 'Yes' to the 'Group Account?' question. Any lists that a group account creates will automatically be treated as group lists. Note that you will need a different email from the one used for your personal account. You can then share the email and password with other members of the group, so that anyone can edit your group lists.
- Alternatively if you are the only one making changes to a group list, you can create a list under your personal account but mark it as a group list. Create the list as usual but select 'Yes' to 'Make this a group list?'. These lists will be shown with your others under My Lists but indicated as group lists. Only you can edit this so it makes sense to add a comment such as "Group list: send any updates to name/email".
Note that all group lists are excluded from rankings tables by default as the totals are misleading when compared with individual listers. Use the group icon to include
and exclude them. They are also shown with the group icon next to their name to make them obvious.Regardless of group lists, you can always view a combined list based on all the different BUBO listers who have entered that list: view lists as normal but ensure you select 'Combined List' instead of rankings. This also shows you the "blockers", or the rarest species in terms of the number of listers who have recorded them. E.g. the combined Swillington Ings 2024 list has reached 176 species but no individual Swilly lister has seen more than 164, and there are six single observer sightings. Where will they be by the end of the year?
We will be developing group lists further, including the ability to view the top sites for an area. If there are features you'd like to see, do let us know.