After searching in vain for an on-line birding check-list application, I decided to build my own. I have already finished building the MySQL data tables; I am now working on the PHP interface to them. Once I have it working, this tool will be available for free to anyone. Unfortunately, this is strictly a personal project, so progress on it is rather slow.
The species list is based on a current edition of the AOU's check-list. Consequently, this application only covers birds in North America. If anyone would like a different list (e.g. the BOU's list or one of the world check-lists. Heck, it doesn't even need to be a list of birds, for that matter. Any sort of species list should work), simply send it to me as a delimited text file, preferably in English (well, except the Latin terms, of course) and encoded in UTF-8.
When I have some more time to devote to this project, I will include more detailed information, as well as the tool itself. The checklist database consists of related data tables. The "Species" table contains the various bird species, and the "Birder" table is essentially a user list. Each birder is then situated within (or visits) a given region, which is listed in the "Regions" table. Each sighting, then, contains a birder, species and region, in addition to other details listed in the "Sightings" table.
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