BIRDBASE UPDATES

PLEASE NOTE:   ALL SPECIES UPDATES ISSUED ON JULY 1, 2007 OR LATER (WITH CLEMENTS' 6TH EDITION SPECIES) CAN BE USED ONLY WITH MARCH 1, 2007 OR LATER PROGRAM ISSUES (FOR VISTA AND 7 OR EARLIER WINDOWS VERSIONS).

PROGRAM UPDATE

Note that the updates contained in the May 1, 2010 issue of the BirdBase program, that are described in this section, are not updates of the species data used by the program. Species updates are described in the Species Updates section.

Changes made in free updates since March 1, 2007

• Facilitating use of Cornell Excel file with Subspecies Add-on. The formatting of the subspecies file produced by the All Subspecies Add-On has been changed to make it easier to use a free download of the Cornell Excel file in selecting the proper subspecies when entering a sighting in BirdBase.
• Error corrected in appearance of File maintenance windows. Thee was an error in the appearance (but not in the operation) of these windows when BirdBase is used without BirdArea. It has been corrected.
• Clarified instructions in a Modify option window. Instructions were rewritten for the window used to modify a sighting while sightings are being entered in BirdBase..
• Rehabilitate option vs. Squeeze option. Suggestions have been added in on-screen help, and in the options themselves, about when to use the BirdBase Rehabilitate sightings indexes option and when to use its Squeeze and resequence sightings option.
• Further additions to on-screen help. Several more paragraphs have been added to the BirdBase on-screen help.
• Uncertain sightings. An improvement has been made in the way they are handled by the BirdBase Squeeze and resequence sightings option.
• Present option enhancement. The last option of the BirdBase Present option, Count species/Inclusive list species for each family, now also counts the total number of families and the total number for which there are sightings.
• Changes in Nation and Place codes. Several changes have been made to reflect recent political developments or for clarification.
• BirdArea installation error message. If a new user tries to start BirdBase after installing BirdArea, but before reaching Tutorial 4 of the BirdArea manual, the missing NAMES.LST error message now explains why BirdBase cannot be started.
• Other improvements in error messages. Several BirdBase error messages have been rewritten to improve their clarity.
• Improvements in on-screen help. Several BirdBase on-screen help paragraphs have been added. And several have been rewritten to improve their clarity.

The May 1, 2010 issue of BirdBase contains the changes listed above, those described below in the March 1, 2007 update, and those in all the preceding updates listed further below.

If you have a copy of BirdBase issued on March 1, 2007 or later you can download the May 1, 2010 issue at no charge by following instructions in the How to Download the Program Update section below. To determine the issue date of your copy, at the BirdBase Main menu click Help/About then click About BirdBase.

If you cannot use the free download to obtain the May 1, 2010 issue of BirdBase because you do not now have the March 1, 2007 or later issue, the May 1, 2010 issue is available on an inexpensive CD ROM; see the Prices and Ordering page. You may be interested in learning that March 1, 2007 was the first time since BirdBase was changed from a DOS to a Windows program in 1996 that all owners were not able to update the program by means of a free download.

The March 1, 2007 update

The Microsoft Windows operating system named Windows Vista was issued on January 30, 2007. To ensure full compatibility of BirdBase with Windows Vista and subsequent versions of Windows, yet retain compatibility with all earlier versions of Windows back to Windows 95, we had to change the method the program uses in manipulating a computer's fast memory (its RAM) to a more efficient one. This was a major rewrite, as can be seen from the increase in length of the BirdBase program file (its .EXE file) which went from 707 kbytes to 969 kbytes.

But our work was worth it because benefits other than compatibility with new versions of Windows were obtained. The most important of them concerns the way the old method of dealing with the computer's fast memory limited the number of species that can be handled by the program to not many more than the number of bird species that are found in Clements' sixth edition. Considering how frequently ornithologists split species, this would cause a BIG problem in the near future. With the new method the limit is more than twice the number of bird species in the sixth edition and so is of no consequence.

Changes made in free updates from January 1, 2000 to March 1, 2007

• Enhancement of date-sequenced first sightings option. Display of date-sequenced first sightings can now be limited to those for a particular location code and/or those whose trip profiles contain a particular word or phrase.
• Dealing with uncertain sightings. There is now a more flexible arrangement for imposing or removing Uncertain status when entering a sighting.
• Present option improvement.  The term "hit list" is used in a more consistent way in the Present option.
• Improvements in on-screen help. Certain BirdBase on-screen help paragraphs have been rewritten to improve their clarity.
• Dealing with a sighting that has a questionable species identification. Such a sighting can now be given the status of Uncertain, preventing it from affecting Present Option built-in life lists and being given First sighting status. Sightings with Uncertain status can then be excluded from or included in Display option outputs. If subsequent reconsideration resolves the question the Uncertain status of the sighting can be removed, and/or its species can be changed, or the sighting can be removed. Several modifications were made to let BirdBase process sightings with Uncertain status. And its Find count discrepancy sources option can now make printouts of the species with any or all of its sightings having Uncertain status, to let you easily find and inspect these sightings for reconsideration.
• Additional support for letters with diacritical marks. BirdBase has long allowed the use of roman letters with diacritical marks (such as â, ä, à, á, å, and æ) in the common names of birds as well as in the body of Sighting Notes. It now also allows them to be used in the Description line of Trip Profiles and in the Word/Phrase line of Sighting Notes.
• Changes in ABA definitions of reporting areas and/or regions.  The year 2003 changes in reporting area and/or region definitions of the American Birding Association have been incorporated in BirdBase. This includes adding both varieties of the new AOU reporting area, one with Greenland and one without Greenland.
• Terminology changes in menus. The terminology in some menus has been changed to be consistent with that used in BirdArea and EditData.
• Improved procedure for taxonomic order renaming. The procedure used in renaming an order (previously called editing the name of the order) has been improved.
• Handling an undocumented limitation in Windows 95, 98, and ME. Added lines of on-screen help for new program features encountered this limitation. It was overcome by slightly condensing some of the instructions.
• Support for very many, very long sighting notes. A limitation has been removed in the total number of very long sighting notes that BirdBase can handle. This required a compensating change in screen display of sightings.
• Empty/Fill button. The new Fill option of the button, seen when specifying a short list manually, puts all full list species on a short list automatically. People who have only BirdBase with the North American plus Hawaiian species, and want to use the Pocket PC Add-On, will find it convenient.
• Improved short list operation. If  you have exchanged a short list for the full list to enter an out-of-range sighting, then exchange the full list for the short list to enter the other sightings of a trip, you will now return to your previous location in the short list instead of to the beginning of the list.
• Additional support for the Pocket PC Add-On. BirdBase has been modified to facilitate use of  the Pocket PC Add-On by people who do not have BirdArea.
• Correction in ABA reporting regions. An error involving the Falkland Islands has been corrected.
• Support for the Pocket PC Add-On. A new option is on the BirdBase Main menu, if the Pocket PC Add-On has been installed. It produces a list of species for the Pocket PC containing those in the current BirdBase short list.
• Minor formatting error fixed. In a Present option list containing the Hawaiian species whose common name is Ou, the scientific name was misaligned with the column of other scientific names by one space due the common name containing only two characters. The misalignment also affected Pocket PC species lists. It has been fixed.
• Improvements in on-screen help.  Several of the BirdBase on-screen help paragraphs have been rewritten to improve their clarity.
• Changes in ABA definitions of reporting areas and/or regions.  The year 2002 changes in reporting area and/or region definitions of the American Birding Association have been incorporated in BirdBase.
• Support for subspecies groups labeled by page numbers.  The change lets BirdBase handle All Subspecies Add-On subspecies groups labeled by the numbers of the page in The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World where the groups are found. This additional labeling, introduced in the Add-On on June 1, 2002, makes it much easier to use the book for help in deciding which subspecies to specify when entering sightings.
• Using smaller font in printouts.  To better match to the narrower and longer sheets of printer paper generally used outside North America, BirdBase now provides the option of choosing a smaller type font for the printer. This font reduces the width of the printed lines and allows more lines to fit on a printed page. It can also be employed by people in the U.S. and Canada who wish to reduce the number of pages in a long printout.
• Preventing space characters after common names.  BirdBase now prevents space characters from accidentally being put after a common name, when a user is updating species in the species/families pages, because they can  confuse interpretation of results obtained by running the Match BirdBase option of the BirdArea utility EditData.
• Species counts in Present option. We have added to the BirdBase Present menu an option which counts, for each family, the total number of species and the number of species that you have seen. The counts can be made for either the full world list of species/families or for any of the many different nation, state, province, etc., short lists.
• Windows XP changes.  The two BirdBase sighting note edit windows have been changed to accommodate the wider title bars introduced by Windows XP.
• Support for subspecies. BirdBase now allows a user to enter subspecies names in a sighting note drop-down list which can hold all the avian subspecies names (plus many other words or phrases). Editing the list is a snap, it alphabetizes itself automatically, and it has the quick-find capabilities of all drop-down lists. Since the list can be exposed when the user is writing the note to be recorded for an individual sighting, specifying the subspecies sighted becomes a rapid procedure. Furthermore, the program now lets sightings displayed be limited to those for which their notes contain a particular subspecies name (or any other word or phrase) and lets the list be exposed when specifying the limitation. As a result of this enhancement, BirdBase users will find it very easy to produce life and annual lists of all of their sightings of any particular subspecies for the whole world or for any part of the world. The drop-down list does not initially contain the more than 21000 subspecies that are in Dr. Clements' book. But the All Subspecies Add-On will put them in it. Or you can use the list's editing capabilities to enter subspecies in it as the need for them arises. Instructions for doing this are in the Help/About option of the updated BirdBase program.
• Support for mammals. An important enhancement to BirdBase is giving the program the ability to handle a list of world mammals. It gives the program the ability to do everything with the world's mammals that it can do with the world's birds. (BirdArea and EditData updates let these programs also handle mammals.) See the page describing the Mammal Data Add-On  for further details.
• Correcting sightings while entering a trip. Another significant enhancement is the inclusion of a Modify button on BirdBase species/families pages used to enter the sightings of a trip or to add more sightings to an already-entered trip. Hilighting a species that may have one or more incorrect sightings entered for the trip, then clicking Modify, displays the sightings of that species for the trip one at a time and lets you immediately remove any that you find to be in error because you entered the wrong species, or edit any sighting notes that you see are incorrect, no matter whether the sightings were just entered or entered when you first started working on the trip. Furthermore, after you do this you remain at the species/families pages and can enter sightings with the correct species to replace the removed ones and/or continue entering other sightings for the trip. Briefly put, BirdBase now lets you correct mistakes as you enter the sightings of a trip without quitting the trip.
• Quick initialization.  We have also put a button labeled Inclusive on the species/families pages seen when using the Initialize option. It makes adding species to your Inclusive life list a one-click process.
• Changes in ABA definitions of area and/or reporting regions.  The year 2000 revisions in reporting area and/or region definitions of the American Birding Association have been incorporated in BirdBase.

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HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM UPDATE

Do not use the download if the BirdBase program you now have was issued before March 1, 2007. If you do, you will overwrite the program now on your computer with one that may not operate. To determine the issue date of your copy, at the BirdBase Main menu click Help/About then click About BirdBase.

First follow the link below this line for detailed download instructions.
Download instructions

Then click the link below this line to do the download.
Download the BirdBase program update BBPGM.EXE

If you should not download, or prefer not to do so, you can purchase a BirdBase program update and instructions for installing it on a CD ROM. Click the link below for price and ordering information.
Price list

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SPECIES UPDATE (SEE THE NOTE IN RED AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE)

The January 1, 2010 update of the BirdBase world species in the program's NAMES.LST files holds all species from the sixth edition of The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World and contains all of Cornell's changes and corrections thru January 8, 2010.

Included in the update is a utility that makes any changes in sightings you have entered in BirdBase that the species changes require.

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