I have used Birder’s Diary since the beginning and do really like the program.
There is a learning curve as it can be a bit overwhelming if you have never
used it before and there are some aspects of the program that really were not
written for someone with no computer skills. Even so, they get my money every
year. One thing I really really really wish they would do is write a Mac
version, but as helpful as Jeff the developer has been over the years I don’t
sense much interest in the Apple platform (also not plans for an iOS version of
the mobile app as far as I know). As of now all my work with Birder’s Diary is
done on the one PC laptop in my lab. When I retire the lack of Mac support
might end up being a deal breaker since I am unlikely to buy a PC laptop just
for that program. But alas, that is a couple years down the road.
Cheers,
Don
------------
Donald R. Powers, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology
Department of Biological & Molecular Sciences
George Fox University
414 N. Meridian St. #6107
Newberg, OR 97132
(503) 554-2705
dpowers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.dpowerslab.com
https://www.facebook.com/PowersLab ;<https://www.facebook.com/PowersLab>
Special Project Links
https://www.experiment.com/hothummingbirds ;
<https://www.experiment.com/hothummingbirds>
https://experiment.com/projects/how-do-hovering-hummingbirds-survive-hot-days ;
<https://experiment.com/projects/how-do-hovering-hummingbirds-survive-hot-days>
https://experiment.com/projects/do-hummingbirds-actually-sleep ;
<https://experiment.com/projects/do-hummingbirds-actually-sleep>
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On Jul 4, 2021, at 3:21 PM, Kay Carter <KayCarter001@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I’ll add my support of this nifty piece of software. Not only does it
support bird sightings elegantly, it also supports just about any other
living thing you can think of, like mammals, butterflies, odonates, plants,
and many, many more. It allows you to establish your own hierarchical list
of places, so you can track/retrieve sightings at as micro or macro a level
you wish. It supports “trips,” so you can group sightings on different
dates/different locations into a trip. It allows you to attach any file you
wish to a sighting, like photos, documents, videos, audio files, anything.
It has an extremely robust report generator so you can get your data back out
any way you want; and if that’s not enough for you, you can export selected
data for manipulation in products like Excel.
I am also a very long-term user and can confirm that the user support is
excellent. They have a very active user forum. The product is upgraded and
enhanced frequently. They also have a (free) mobile app for inputting
sightings in the field. This is fairly new and is not yet quite as robust as
eBird’s mobile app, but it’s catching up quickly. Finally, it’s easy to
transfer data from Birder’s Diary to eBird.
As you can tell, I’m pretty enthusiastic about this product, and I promise
I’m not affiliated with it in any way 😊.
Kay Carter
Canby
From: obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Lew
& Marti Ligocki
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2021 2:57 PM
To: OBOL <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [obol] Birders Diary
I don’t know how many of you use the listing program Birder’s Diary, but
Marti and I have been using it for almost 15 years, and we find it
indispensable. I particularly want to give a public shout-out to their
technical support.
During a recent computer system upgrade, our bird database was damaged. When
I contacted Birders Diary support, the developer/programmer was willing and
able to access my computer and troubleshoot the issue. Using related files in
the BD directory, he was able to resurrect and reconstruct the database. As a
result, we’ve not lost one bird sighting from our 30 years of records. He
also set up a better backup routine and linked our program version to the
latest Clements list. What a relief.
I’d be happy to give more information to anyone interested.
