In the web version, the bird count data form includes a notes field and also the ability to see and edit seen/heard/total counts for each species. It would be great if these features were in the app as well.
@christina.g in the app you can record either seen or seen and heard. You can also remove any records created accidentally. I have pasted the link to the help doc detailing the use of the bird count in the app here Bird count records | Trap.NZ Help & User guides
Thanks Lenore - sorry if I was unclear, I meant that it would be nice to be able to see all three columns of numbers at once in the app, not just the total as currently.
I can see on the help page that the app is set up so that you record a bird only once, under how you first observed it, and for that it makes sense to have only the total showing. However, the monitoring protocol that I’m using is to record max seen, max heard, and total birds as independent datasets. So if you hear a bird call and later see a bird, you record both observations but the total remains 1, not 2, unless you know for certain that they are separate birds. This makes it easier to evaluate the reliability of the species ID, especially if the observer is inexperienced. At the moment, it’s possible to enter the data this way in the website, but not in the app, and I thought there might be other people who are using similar monitoring protocols and would find it a useful app feature.
Also, is there currently any way to access the notes field from the app? I couldn’t find this on the help page. If the notes field was available both during and after the 5 minute monitoring period, then any information that doesn’t quite fit the existing bird count form could go there instead (e.g. male/female birds, interesting bird behaviours, type of background noise, what vegetation is flowering/fruiting…).
unfortunately there is no notes field in the bird count feature at the moment