BirdBase and BirdArea for Windows are two separate relational database management programs that work together to manage all of your bird sightings. Both products can be purchased separately and will work quite well by themselves, but the cumulative benefits of using both products together are substantial. The Santa Barbara Software Products Home Page states “Nearly all birders who declare life lists over 6000 in the latest American Birding Association List Report, and who use computers, use this software. It is the birding software most widely used by all those over the 1400 species reporting threshold.”. There is a reason for this...BirdBase and BirdArea have both the capacity to handle a lifetime of sightings data and the flexibility to manage taxonomy changes.

Both BirdBase for Windows (BirdBase) and BirdArea for Windows (BirdArea) come on two 3.5" floppy disks per each program. I recommend making backups of each disk before installation and using the backup disks for installation; this is especially important if more than one member of your family will be using the software and needs to work from a separate directory. It was relatively painless to do this for my spouse and child, but could be a little confusing. The installation process, both for single and multiple users, is described in the adequate manuals accompanying BirdBase (53 pages) and BirdArea (62 pages). Tutorials for using both programs are provided in these manuals. One of the really nice things about BirdBase and BirdArea is that both programs installed take up just over 4 MB of hard drive space (even after entering almost 5,000 sightings data into BirdBase, I was able to “zip” the entire directory containing both BirdBase and BirdArea into a single file which does not exceed the capacity of a 3.5" floppy disk!...very economical use of your hard drive!).

BirdBase is a database management program for recording bird sightings. Once your sightings data are in the program, you can then produce many different lists (life lists, lists for specific geographical areas, all sightings for a specific species, etc.). BirdBase comes in two versions: 1. Clements’ list of world bird species, and 2. the North American and Hawaiian birds species list of the American Birding Association (ABA) and the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU); both versions include the North American and Hawaiian ABA/AOU list. Even if you have the world list of 9,792 birds, you can choose to limit the list of birds to the ABA/AOU list (1,015 birds) when entering trip data. This is a real time saver if you’re entering data for only North American bird species.

Before starting to enter data, you must make some decisions on the hierarchy (“markers”) used; I chose Nation, State, County, and Home (you only have to do this once...BirdBase will remember). Then you can begin to enter sightings. Sightings may be entered individually, or by trip/location, where you select birds from a pick-list. There is a handy feature for searching for specific birds in the pick-list, and you really begin to appreciate this after working with it for a while. Although it is best to enter sightings chronologically, it’s not mandatory to do so (there is a Squeeze and Resequence feature). If the sighting you enter is the first one you’ve entered for a bird, BirdBase will indicate “New Sighting!”. I love the ability to sort sightings based on geographic area, making it easy to produce lists of all species seen at a specific location (e.g., Fall Creek Falls State Park, UTK Campus, Cades Cove, etc.); and you can tell BirdBase to limit your list to one sighting per species (including a numerical tally). If you want to list all sightings for a specific species, such as Red-headed Woodpecker or Hermit Thrush, BirdBase can do that, too. One of the best features of BirdBase is the ability to rename (both common and scientific names), combine, and split bird species, making this a program that will never be obsolete or outgrown. BirdBase is a very efficient, powerful, and adaptable program for managing your bird sightings.

BirdArea is a database manager that contains detailed information concerning ranges of every bird species in the world (over 9700 species in 254 nations and places, 50 U.S. States plus the District of Columbia, and 12 Canadian provinces and territories), and can use this range data to list species for hundreds of world areas, labeling those species endemic to certain areas. Used alone, BirdArea can produce check lists for any world faunal zone, country, province or state, and is a great tool for planning birding trips.

Using both BirdBase and BirdArea together provides many additional capabilities. In any list you generate, each bird will be labeled to indicate whether you have seen the bird within the area, outside of the area, or both. You will also be able to list, for a specific area, birds you have seen within the area as well as those that have not been observed within the specific area. BirdBase can also search for birds that you have seen within an area, even though range data indicate that the species should not occur there. The EditData utility (provided with BirdArea) allows you to update range data yourself based on newly published information or personal sightings; Santa Barbara Software Products also provides annual disk updates of ranges, names, and taxonomy.

Bottom Line:  BirdBase and BirdArea handle the chore of managing your bird sightings extremely well and won’t tax your hard drive. You won’t find multimedia flash here, but if you’re looking for a program to efficiently manage your bird sightings, these products will likely do everything you will ever need. Having been a “birder” for over 30 years, I’ve imagined lots of ways over the years that I’d like to have my data sorted and compiled. BirdBase does all that I had imagined, and BirdArea allows me to go way beyond that with the generation of specific checklists and “hit” lists. And the ability to rename, split, and combine bird species means that you’ll never outgrow this software. I recommend both BirdBase and BirdArea without reservation.

System Tested On:  IBM-compatible PC with a 133Mhz Pentium; Windows 95; 64-bit PCI-bus SVGA video card; 32 Mb of RAM; 8x CD-ROM drive; Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold sound card; mouse

Minimum System: Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, 3.5" floppy-disk drive, about 4 MB hard drive space

Technical support is available by phone (toll number), e-mail, or on the Santa Barbara Software Products Home Page.

BirdBase for Windows (Clements’ world list) - $59.95 + $4 S&H (North American/Hawaiian-only version available for $39.95 + $3 S&H); BirdArea for Windows - $59.95 + $4 S&H; BirdBase and BirdArea purchased together - $99.95 + $6 S&H

Santa Barbara Software Products, Inc., 1400 Dover Road, Santa Barbara, California 93103; phone/fax (805) 963-4886