BUBO Listing is a new approach to an old activity; comparing birding lists. Whilst frowned upon by the more serious-minded, bird listing is as vibrant, active and exciting as ever. Put two birders in a room together and before too long they'll know if the other saw the Long-billed Murrelet in Devon!

There have been a number of attempts to enable comparison of lists on the internet, some local and others at the national level or wider. Whilst all have positive sides, they all have disadvantages too. BUBO Listing is an attempt to provide a free, flexible and widely used site for the comparison of birding lists. The more people that use BUBO Listing, the better it will become for all users.

Advantages of BUBO Listing

1. BUBO Listing is free.
2. BUBO Listing is immediate. As soon as you update your list, it is there for the world to see.
3. BUBO Listing is password-protected so only you can update your own lists.
4. BUBO Listing has no elitist threshold - you can enter a list of a single bird upwards.
5. BUBO Listing is entirely transparent - you can view anything submitted by anyone else.
6. BUBO Listing is designed to be very flexible in the types of lists submissible, whilst also retaining sufficient structure to enable meaningful comparison of lists.
7. BUBO Listing is designed to make it as quick and easy as possible to input and update lists.
8. BUBO Listing puts you in charge of your lists. No-one will be making decisions about what you can and can't count.

In short, the idea is that a birder logs in and can input 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. The list might represent a Life List covering Great Britain, or it might represent a Year List covering an English county such as Norfolk. The birder can also record lists representing only self-found birds. Of course, one of the perennial questions in listing is deciding which species are acceptable to count; to allow flexibility here BUBO Listing is not prescriptive but allows lists based on a number of 'authorities'.

Having entered a list (or lists), the birder can then obviously view those lists, and update them as they discover new species. However, the added advantage of the system is that the birder can then compare their lists with those of other birders using BUBO Listing. This is not just restricted to a basic comparison of totals; birders can look at the detail of anyone else's lists. If you don't believe Fred Blogg's 1987 Northamptonshire Year List, you can go in and look at which species were involved, and where and when they were recorded. It is important to note that BUBO Listing does not vet individual records, comments or claims made: any claim a lister makes is freely available for all other listers to see. We may however contact the lister if an unusual record (or a potentially libellous comment!) is brought to our attention and we believe that an error may have been made.

But BUBO Listing is even more powerful than that. The birder can also query the list database by species. For example, if you wished to find out how many BUBO Listers had seen Siberian Rubythroat in Britain, this would be a few clicks of the mouse away. You could then even see when and where those lucky few had added it to their lists. Similarly, whilst keeping your year list, you might want to keep an eye on your key remaining target species. BUBO Listing makes it possible to see which species you still need to see, but that most of your competitors have already got (NB: feature coming soon!).

BUBO Listing Development

BUBO Listing is provided free of charge. Costs are incurred for development and hosting however, so if you enjoy BUBO Listing and would like to contribute please use the Paypal donate button on the right. (You don't even need a Paypal account.) Any surplus funds will aid our next twitches! Do not feel obliged to donate though; birders are a notoriously miserly lot - we know, because we are ourselves! BUBO Listing is also supported by relevant advertising, and is an affiliate of Amazon - if you are buying any bird books (or other goods) then we would appreciate it if you could buy them through the BUBO store so that we receive a small commission!

System Requirements

Photographs

Photos used throughout the BUBO Listing website have been provided by the following photographers:

• Mike Prince, www.bubo.org/gallery
• Andy Musgrove
• Paul Bowerman, www.severnsidebirds.co.uk 
• John Martin

Copyright remains with the original photographer. If you wish to use any of these photos, whether electronically or in print, contact BUBO Listing and we will put you in touch with the particular photographer.