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BIRDAREA

FEATURES

BirdArea purchased with the world species ranges can list, in detail, the range of any bird species. And it can use the ranges to produce an annotated check list of the birds of any major world area. When purchased with the North American and Hawaiian species ranges it can produce such check lists for any U.S. state and any Canadian province or territory.

For detailed discussion of the features in BirdArea, click the following links:

The range data
Using BirdArea
Using BirdArea with BirdBase
The EditData utility and updating the ranges
Updating the programs features

For a demonstration of BirdArea working with BirdBase and EditData, click below:
Birding software demonstration

Click below for price and ordering information.
Price list

THE RANGE DATA

A program such as BirdArea can be no better than the data it uses.

The list of bird names and taxonomy in the program's world version are taken from the most recent annual update by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (see http://birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist) of the sixth edition of The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World (2007: Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press). It has long been adopted by the American Birding Association because it is by far the most widely used list of world bird species.

The program's range data comes in part from more than one thousand books and other publications, in ten languages. The major project of collecting and analyzing detailed ranges for every bird species was carried out over a period of years by Shawneen Finnegan -- with the assistance of private communications from dozens of experts all over the world and the advice of Dr. Clements. The annual updates of the range data were first produced by Ms. Finnegan, then by Dr. Clements, then from information provided by the Cornell Lab, and now are again being produced by Ms. Finnegan. In addition to the published literature and expert advisers, she uses adequately documented suggestions for improving the range data received from BirdArea owners. The Cornell Lab and Dr. Clements need no introduction. Ms. Finnegan is a professional birding tour leader and a professional artist specializing in birds.

The range data for all the world's species are in a computer file that contains more than three million "yes" or "no" entries. A subset of these data for the birds of North America and Hawaii is in the version of BirdArea selling at a reduced price.

Our principal competitor is so impressed with the range data that it buys copies of the world version of BirdArea from us for resale to its customers!

People purchasing new copies of the world version of BirdArea on or after August 1 of each year will be able to download from our web site a free range data update soon after the Cornell Lab posts its bird names and taxonomy update in October of that year.

USING BIRDAREA

With the world version, check lists can be produced for 319 world areas almost instantly. These include: every U.S. state; every Canadian province or territory; every nation in the world, with major islands of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Malaysia handled separately; many additional islands or island groups that have endemic species or are important for other reasons; and the major world oceans.
The world version of BirdArea can make check lists for many predefined combinations of the 319 areas such as the ABA reporting regions or areas and the major world faunal zones (including the West Palearctic as well as the entire Palearctic). It can even make check lists for combinations of the 319 areas you can define for yourself, like Scandinavia or the Northeastern U.S. states.
All BirdArea lists can be displayed on screen, printed on paper, or written to text or data disk files. So that a check list printout will be most useful when taken on a birding trip, it can be produced in a variety of formatting styles which, for each species, have places for multiple check marks and/or for writing field notes. Any endemic species on the check lists are labeled to give them the emphasis they deserve.
BirdArea can make lists showing only the endemics in any of the 319 areas or any of the combinations you define.
At each step of their operation, BirdArea, and its utility EditData, describe on screen every option currently available to the user. There is also on-screen help and click-by-click users manual tutorials.
With the North American and Hawaiian version of BirdArea, a check list can be produced for each of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, each of the 13 Canadian provinces and territories, as well as combinations like the Pacific Coast U.S. states.

USING BIRDAREA WITH BIRDBASE

If BirdBase is used then BirdArea has many additional capabilities: It can label each bird in any check list to show if you have already seen the bird within the area, outside the area, or both. For the birds of any area, BirdArea can list those you have seen within the area, or anywhere, as well as make a hit list of the birds you have not seen within the area, or anywhere. It can search your sightings for ones in which a bird is seen within an area although the range data predict the bird is excluded from it, or search for ones in which a bird is seen outside the area although the range data predict the bird is endemic to it. And it can search all of your sightings for ones in which a bird is seen outside its known range. Only the combination of BirdBase plus BirdArea offers you all this valuable information.

In most of the procedures described in the preceding item the sightings inspected by BirdArea can be limited to those which are or are not "marked" by BirdBase in any way you wish (e.g., "photographed," "heard but not seen," "seen on nest," "immature," "birder's name," etc.). And sightings of uncertain status can be excluded or included.
BirdArea can provide BirdBase with a short list for every area mentioned in the second item of this section. This capability, unique to our birding software, allows world birders to use short lists with BirdBase when recording trips, no matter where, making them much easier to record and making it obvious when recording if a bird is seen outside its known range. Emphasizing these very important out-of-range sightings "in real time" encourages you to record their exact circumstances in detailed sighting notes.

THE EDITDATA UTILITY AND UPDATING THE RANGES

A utility program called EditData is included to let you update the ranges in BirdArea's range data file, using published information or information from your own sightings. And EditData lets you handle all possible changes in the bird names or taxonomy in this file. Alternatively, you can use an updated version of the range data file produced each year by Santa Barbara Software Products. It completely automates updating the BirdArea range data.

UPDATING THE PROGRAMS FEATURES

From time to time we update the BirdArea and EditData programs by adding new features or improving existing features. This is done whenever we think of something that would be an improvement to the programs -- or a user suggests such an improvement. When this happens we immediately start shipping the updated programs to people purchasing new copies. And except for major rewrites (changing the DOS versions of the programs into Windows versions in 1996 and making them fully compatible with Windows Vista in 2007 are the only ones that have occurred) we also post on this web site a free download of the updated programs for people who already have copies. For more information about the many free downloads we have made available in recent years take this link to the section BirdArea program update.