News and Improvments

identifying female birds

okbird — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:30:31 GMT

Hello,

I'm new to WhatBird but already enjoy it. However, I can't find IDs or photos for female birds--are they in the database?

If so, what should I do to access that information?

Thanks,

how do i contact a moderator?

deborah579 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:17:05 GMT

How do i contact someone about a problem logging onto the first part of this forum????

trouble signing in

deborah579 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:13:51 GMT

I try to sign in to go to the forum..... problem is I cannot post. When i click it directs me to sign in, when i try to sign in it tells me i am already logged in and to contact the moderator. This is very frustrating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Birds of Central and South America

Mitchell Waite — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 18:50:21 GMT

We have begun adding birds of Central and South America to the database. You can pick the continent attribute to restrict the search to North, Central or South America. Eventually we will separate the database into one just for these non North America species but for a while we are mixing it in. Here are the birds that we have entered so far for Central and South America.

These birds are very colorful and exciting. Some may be seen in North America as well, such as the parrots and parakeets.

Why can't I delete the toolbar?

Lonnie — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:04:39 GMT

I decided that the toolbar is not what I was looking for, and just removed it from my visible toolbar, which worked fine until I got a message every time I open my browser, asking me if I want to update to the new toolbar. So when I tried to remove it, it doesn't show up in my add and remove programs list, and minimizing it doesn't stop the update pop ups from appearing every time I turn on my Firefox...

What I'd like to see

Rose — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:38:58 GMT

Ok. I absolutely L-O-V-E whatbird.com! Please take this only as constructive criticism to make it even better! :) The email update system does not work at all. I don't believe I have EVER gotten a single email from whatbird, even though I am very active, & click on the appropriate buttons to be informed of new posts in certain topics. I have heard others mention the same thing. This update would make the difference between whatbird being awesome to TOTALLY awesome! :) Hope you understand what I'm pointing out! Thank you!

A Bird Video

Nadhifa Trihapsoro — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:46:39 GMT

Try this link : http://ibc.hbw.com/ibc

NORTHERN FLICKER ON THIS PAGE IS INCORRECTLY DISPLAYED

rl27 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:58:02 GMT

A buddy and I got a couple good pics of a Northern Flicker today and the description displayed on this website is Partially Inaccurate, and very unhelpful in our search. If someone could please update the description to portray a more accurate account for what the bird looks like it might save someone else a massive migraine. Enclosed is the link to what the bird actually looks like please feel free to comment on the differences, Thanks.

http://www.sdakotabirds.com/species/northern_flicker_info.htm

Sincerely,

Your Friends in South Dakota

Red-winged Blackbird Picture

cirrus — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:47:37 GMT

I think the Red-winged Blackbird in the wizard needs a picture of a female, since they are so confusing.

Please help us choose a logo for Whatbird.com

Mitchell Waite — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:42:03 GMT

To see our logo ideas go here and vote.

New Search Engine

ewalcz — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 07:35:31 GMT

Hi,

I tried to compare "Anna's Hummingbird" with "Broad-Tailed Hummingbird" and got some strange results, which I would like to report.

I would like to send a screen print, but cannot attach files (I get a warning that I am not authorized). I have a screen print of the results, but am not sure how to present them to you. I have tried to paste the results, but I cannot preview that the "paste" took.

Bottom Line, I got a comparison of "Brown-capped Rosy Finch" and "Asian Brown FlyCatcher"

Your thoughts?

Overhaul of Search Engine

Mitchell Waite — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:00:20 GMT

We have finished a major overhaul of the search engine and would like to know about it. Mainly the changes have been made to the front end where you do your selecting of attributes.

1. The search mode now starts out with a scrolling text view of all the birds in the database.

You can sort the names by First, Last

You can sort the names by Last, First. This is nice as you can sort the birds into families.

You can sort the names taxonomically. Here you can see the partridge and chukar come right after the falcons.

You can perform a "dynamic" bird search. As you enter letters, the system whittles down the possibilities so that the correct bird name will scroll to the top. Here we typed the letters "cur" and the system narrowed the list to just birds with the with "cur" in them.

You can switch to icon view if you prefer that. These can also be sorted three ways.

2. The bird names have all been reduced to the nominate name, there is no longer suffixes like “breeding male”, “female”, etc.

If there are variations to the bird they appear under a new tab called Variations. For example here is the Anna’s Hummingbird male, female and juvenile:

If we have not created variation images the tab does not appear.

We are adding variations for all the birds now. d. There are 882 “species” in the database but there are actually over 1000 images.

3. The Compare link allows you to view from 2 to 5 birds in a side by side grid – there is one small bug in it we are still fixing.

Forum has been updated

Mitchell Waite — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:45:35 GMT

We have updated our Community Server from 2.0 to 2.1. The "skin" is back to the generic version -- we should have it updated to the Whatbird look in the next few days. There are a TON of new features, such as Tags, and things that work better now, like the gallery slide show. You can read about some of these changes here:

http://communityserver.org/forums/thread/542599.aspx

and here

http://communityserver.org/blogs/announcements/archive/2006/12/05/community-server-2-1-service-pack-2.aspx

This link shows how to use some of the special features

http://docs.communityserver.org/

I hope you enjoy the forum changes.

New Search Engine - Please try

Mitchell Waite — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:29:50 GMT

We have launched a new search engine interface:

http://identify.whatbird.com/mwg/_/0/attrs.aspx

The features are:

Interaface now fits in a 1024 x 768 screen so there is no excessive scrolling.
Entire interface is more compact.
History window is no longer between the Match and Attributes windows so its easier to see your selections.
Match window is more compact and can viewed in either a compact or expanded mode.

I would very much like to get your feedback. You can take the poll and leave a message.

[Please visit the site to access the poll]

Stupid and Irreverent but very funny

Mitchell Waite — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 21:00:00 GMT

If this doesnt make you laugh nothing will

Bird

BIRDS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

Mitchell Waite — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 17:41:37 GMT

You wont believe it.

100 New Users in July

Mitchell Waite — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 01:15:43 GMT

So far in July close to 100 new users have signed up for the Whatbird Forum. Thats a great record and very exciting. Sure its no YouTube with literally millions of new users, but the quality of the people on our site and the advice they are giving is fantastic.

Since David has been in the field for the past month, I am particuarly grateful to the knowledgable birders here who are helping people identify birds.

Galleries now work right and how to set up

Mitchell Waite — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 17:56:42 GMT

There has been a problem with the galleries for a long time, a) if you didnt sign up for them when you registered they did not work and b) the quota was always 9K, which is too small. Now you can add them at any time and there is no quota, they be as big as you wish.

To create your own Gallery go to your Profile (click on your name at the top right of the screen - you must be logged in). There will be a sidebard on the right where you can Create a New Gallery or Create a New Blog.

You can also set up your Avatar here (the little icon that appears next to your name).

Good luck, and let me know if you have any problems.

Added More Bandwidth and Other News

Mitchell Waite — Fri, 26 May 2006 23:15:33 GMT

We just upped our bandwidth another notch, from 2 mbps to 3 mbps, so you should notice the pages are snappier. Please let me know if you can tell.

The site popularity keeps growing and growing, even the sales is up at our store as we slowly populate it with new products.

We just added a bunch of books and cool CDs to the store, check here.

Whatbird Search Engine Intro Video

Mitchell Waite — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 00:58:04 GMT

This is a basic introduction to using the Whatbird search engine. It requires the Windows Media Player.

[media width=750 height=750]http://www.whatbird.com/Video/test/test_media/test.wmv[/media]

New Feature: Wikipedia Module

Mitchell Waite — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 22:55:19 GMT

I'm experimenting with some of the free modules that Community Server offers for this platform. Here is how to use the Wikipedia module. Wikipedia is a fantastic encycolpedia that is based on the collaboration model.

To insert a wikipedia link in your text, use the following tag:

wikipedia: TOPIC (surround it by the brackets [ and ])

where TOPIC is the text you want to both display as a link and link to within Wikipedia.

Example
-------

For example, to link to information about the Red-tailed Hawk within a post, you would write:

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing a wikipedia: Red-tailed Hawk with [ before wikipedia and ] after Hawk. (If I put the brackets where they belong you would not see the text.)

So it would appear like this:

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing a [wikipedia:Red-tailed Hawk].

Now when you click on the yellow text a little window will appear with the definition of the Hawk taken from Wikipedia.

New Whatbird Forum

Mitchell Waite — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 05:53:05 GMT

We have upgraded our Community Server platform from 1.0 to 2.0 and there a host of new features. On the surface it works just like the previous platform, but if you dig a little you will find a great number of additions and improvements. Over the next few days I will be listing these new features and how to use them. Some are self explainatory while others have a small learning curve.

The main thing you will be interested in at this point is changing your profile, which controls how the interface is presented to you, your avatar, email, and so on. To make changes to your profile just click on your user name in the upper right corner of the screen. You will be presented with a tabbed dialog box where you can do all kinds of things.

This is a relatively new release so you may discover some issues, even a bug or two. If you do encounter any problems please send me an email with a description of the problem and a copy of the error if you get one and I will fix it.

Mitch Waite

Matches now sorted Taxonomically

Mitchell Waite — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:13:49 GMT

For since I can remember our database sorted everything alphabetically. We spent the last week inventing a way for it to sort taxonomically and it’s now working.

What is really interesting is how much more educational it is to view the birds this way. When you get a match window birds that are alike are grouped together!

An example of the taxonomic order is this list of birds of Massachusetts. Scroll the match list and note how Loons come first and sparrows last.

Here is a link to the entire list of birds so you can see it all in one place. Pretty amazing.

There is a button for sorting the list alphabetically or taxonomically.

You can now attach gif files to your messages

Mitchell Waite — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 01:34:07 GMT

You can now attach gif files to your messages. Maximum of 400K. Size will be shrunk to 550 pixels wide.

Species pages now have photos!

Mitchell Waite — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 22:03:26 GMT

We have added a new feature to the WhatBird species pages. There are now photographs of the bird culled from the Internet. You can see them under the illustration. Four images are shown, you can click Next and see four more. Click on any thumbnail to enlarge full size. Here is an example

Allen's Hummingbird

Hope this is useful, please let us know what you think.