Here at 10,000 Birds we are always trying to make things - including listing - easier for our readership, and having given prominence to a number of easy-peasy ways of creating bird lists in the past, I thought I’d pass on the following info from two Brit birders, Andy Musgrove and Mike Prince (the latter has been very helpful to me and Birds Korea over the years, hence a little free publicity…)

“BUBO Listing is a free website which allows the storage, viewing and comparison of birding lists, set up by British birders Andy Musgrove and Mike Prince (although Mike currently resides in India). The site went public just over a year ago, initially concentrating on birding in the UK. Following positive feedback, Andy and Mike later expanded the site to allow world bird listing. Now, BUBO Listing is going truly international by allowing lists to be entered for any region or location in the world. In the last few weeks, for example, lists have been entered for North America, USA, Canada, Connecticut, Australia, New Zealand, India, Gujarat and Iceland with more regions coming on stream soon. Andy and Mike are keen to encourage birders from anywhere in the world to use the site. For example, one of the next priority areas is to enable listing for all US and Canadian states, for which they would like plenty of feedback from American birders.

The more people that use BUBO Listing, the better it becomes. The thinking behind the site is that individual birders maintain their own lists, and that all records are entirely transparent. A birder logs in and inputs a full bird list on the system - not just the total, but the complete composition of the list, ideally along with a date and location for each species. Bird lists can be defined based on region (e.g., New York City, Florida, Mexico, World), period (allowing life lists and year lists), “all birds” or “self-found” only, and authority. The latter describes the base-list on which a list can be built, such as Clements, ABA, BOU, etc. Generally the species checklists used are from the most authoritative and/or popular organisations for the particular region. Thus Clements (6th edition) is used for World lists, the AOU list is included for North and Middle America, and the ABA list for Continental USA and the Lower 48 States, amongst other areas.

As of 17th April 2008, there were 1,496 lists entered onto BUBO Listing, by a total of 539 birders, but the numbers are growing daily. Lists have been entered for 77 different regions so far. To date, British lists accounts for about half of the total, but there are already 114 world lists and 156 Western Palearctic lists. Experience suggests that the numbers of lists for America, Australia and India, amongst many other areas, will soon start to increase rapidly.”

Sounds worth a look? Personally I like the lay-out of the site and the components do seem to work very well. To get started all you need to do is go to http://www.bubo.org/listing; you can look at lists on the system immediately, and just need to spend a few seconds getting yourself a username and password if you want to enter your own lists. So if you’ve a few minutes spare or would like a break from chasing exotic migrants, then pop along.

Andy and Mike still have a number of further developments planned, and are always pleased to get suggestions/comments (particularly from birders outside the UK) for potential improvements by the way…