Birdwatcher's Diary

iPhone • iPad • iPod Touch
Checklist Software for Birders

Master bird lists for download

United States state lists	Country lists
Alaska Arizona Arkansas California CA - Alameda County (CBC-only) CA - Monterey County CA - Plumas County CA - San Diego County CA - San Luis Obispo County CA - Santa Barbara County CA - Santa Clara County Colorado Florida Hawaii Maine Massachusetts Michigan New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico North Carolina Ohio Oregon Texas Species (e.g., Gull sp.) - use this to merge with other lists as desired	Australia Belize Canada Canada_fr [en Français) Quebec_fr [en Français) Costa Rica Ecuador Italy Mexico [preinstalled] Netherlands New Zealand Panama South Africa Spain (in English) España (en español) Thailand (includes bird names in English and Thai) Trinidad and Tobago United Kingdom [preinstalled] UKBritish - U.K. with local British names (e.g., Divers instead of Loons) United States [preinstalled] Venezuela World
Special lists for eBirders Complete (complete world list, excluding extinct species, but including all spuhs, slashes, hybrids, and forms) eBirdSpuhs (e.g., accipiter sp.) - 333 items eBirdSlashes (e.g., Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher) - 143 items eBirdForms (e.g., Cackling Goose (minima)) - 1493 items eBirdHybrids (e.g., Eurasian x American Wigeon (hybrid)) - 119 items Note: the lists of "spuhs", "slashes", forms, and hybrids are all included in the complete world list, and also all encompass the complete world. Even restricting their scope to a single country, they are all probably more extensive (by far) than will be needed by most birders. You may wish to edit the ".lst" file on your computer, deleting all the lines that you don't think you're likely to ever want to record, before installing in your copy of Birdwatcher's Diary.
Butterflies Although the software is called "Birdwatcher's Diary," you can install lists of anything - butterflies, bugs, mammals, etc. Here's one example: NAButterflies (811 North American butterflies, with English and Latin names)

Downloading directly into the software on the iPhone (requires BWD 4.2 or higher, and Internet access from the iPhone)

1. In the iPhone Settings app, in the Birdwatcher section, find the Input Base URL setting and verify that it is set to www.stevenscreek.com/iPhone/BirdLists (if you purchased the software starting with version 4.2 or later, this will be the initial default value, so you shouldn't need to enter it; if you have been using the software prior to the release of version 4.2, you will).
   
   
2. On the Input section of the File screen of Birdwatcher's Diary, make sure that On Download is set to Replace, and Contents is set to Master List. Enter a name from the list above into the Filename field, making sure to include spaces. For example, enter New Jersey. You don't need to add any extension; the software automatically adds a .lst extension if it's not there, which is what is appropriate for these files.
   
   
3. Tap Download and (assuming your iPhone has Internet access) the chosen master list will be downloaded. It will become the new active list on your main screen, and, simultaneously, it will be saved with the rest of your lists (accessed on the Lists screen) for later instant recall.
   
   
4. Repeat steps 2-3 as often as you like to download as many lists as are appropriate.

Installing the list from your desktop/laptop computer via iTunes (requires iOS 4 or higher)

First, click on the name of any country or region in the list above (you must do this from a desktop/laptop computer, not from the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad).This will download to your computer a file named XXXX.ZIP. Unzip ("extract" or "unstuff") this file and you will have a file named xxxx.lst.

To install this list in your copy of Birdwatcher's Diary on the iPhone, plug your iPhone in to your computer. Now in iTunes (version 9.2 or higher), when you select your iPhone on the left (under "Devices"), and then select the Apps tab on the top of the screen, on the bottom portion of the screen you'll see a section entitled "File Sharing" (you'll probably need to scroll down).

On the left will be a list of applications which support file sharing; Birdwatcher's Diary (labelled "Birdwatcher") will be one of them. Select Birdwatcher and then tap the Add button at the bottom. Select the XXXX.lst file from your computer, and the file is downloaded into the iPhone. If you are running Birdwatcher's Diary at the time, exit it and restart it so the software will know about the new master list file (which it will rename as XXXX.txt and move into the Master Lists folder). The new list will now appear in the list of possible master lists on the Recall Lists screen. If the list does not appear, you need to "kill" the app ("really" exit it) and then restart it. To do this, double-tap the "Home" button on the iPhone. Hold you finger down on the Birdwatcher icon on the bottom row until it wiggles, and then tap the red minus sign that appears on it (this is how you "kill" any app). Tap the Home button twice again, and now restart the app.

If you create your own .lst file to install in this way, it should be a simple text file, with one species per line, and one, two, or three items on each line, separated by tabs. So either just the name of the species, the name and the code, or the name, code, and note. If the file contains any "special" characters (characters with accent marks or in non-Latin alphabets), it should be a UTF-8 encoded file (see this page if you don't know what that means or how to create such a file).

Don't have a copy of the software yet?