How to Keep Birding Records in a Field Notebook

Video Transcript

"Welcome to Expert Village. My name is Wayne Petersen and I direct the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Important Bird Areas Program for Massachusetts. Today, we're here at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield, Massachusetts. And, we're going to be talking about the equipment needed to get one started in birding. Now, one of the things that's really important as a starting birder and also increasingly as your birding career progresses, is to keep track of what you see, to keep records, to keep good notes. And, there is various ways to do that and there is various systems that different birders use. But, sort of fundamental to the process is a small notebook, a field notebook, something that you can carry into the field, preferably pocket sized that will allow you to make your notes while you're on the spot. Make sure that you use a pen that is waterproof, so that if your notes get wet, there are wet notebooks that actually allow you to write on paper that won't bleed if the paper or ink gets wet. But, the subject of what goes into these notebooks is obviously going to be something that we'll talk about in more detail. But, what many birders do, is to take their field notebook and they transfer their in the field observations into something that is more of a, an ongoing register. I like something like this. It's a standard diary. It's the kind of thing that has pages that will allow you to enter information on a daily basis if you'd like. And, again, the subject of, of these expanded observations is something that we'll talk about in more detail. Finally, I would add, in place of hard copy notes, many people increasing are using the computer and their various software packages that allow you to maintain your bird notes, your bird lists, your bird records. Many of these things are databases that can be interactive, and can be, you can move information around. Certainly, keeping track of what you see is very important and where you go and how many individuals of each species, these are things that are very critical to a birding career."