How To Use

Countday.org is an Internet application designed to link groups of birders on a collaborative “real-time” bird census to track total species and numbers of birds and an ideal tool for the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Counts.  Counts are automatically timed for a 24-hour day and will be activated at midnight and stop 24-hours later, on a day that the leader (compiler) selects.  Although a count can be initiated and completed with only a single person, the tool is most powerful when multiple counters pool their results.

To participate in a count, all you need to do is to create a login, find a count that you would like to participate, and make a "request to be a counter" to the leader.  The leader will see a notification on their count page and can accept your request.  Once accepted, you are now linked to every participant to tally birds and you now become a “Counter”.

On the day of the count, Leaders and Counters will have the ability to "Add Birds" to the count.  All species and counts are summarized on the counts main page in real-time.  The application allows you to see total species and numbers, and allows you to "drill down" into each observer and species, and records the time the species was tallied.  Users can also see the sequence of species added for the day.  Links and drill-down functions are all signified with underlined texts or numbers

How-to instructions for adding birds

On the day of the census, find your count using either the search feature under "All Counts", or select "My Counts" from the top main menu.  The My Counts page will only list past, present and future counts where you are either a leader, or have been accepted as a Counter by the Leader.   When you select your active count, you will see a button "Add Birds".  Activate this button and you will see a list of species with open cells to add numbers.  Simply scroll through the list and add the number of birds observed.  Once complete, select the button "add birds" or "Go" on your cell-phone touch-pad.  The Add Birds function will submit the species and tally to the census total and the results are immediately viewable by other users.

Navigation

Each count has a “main tally” page that shows the total species, this page includes a bird house icon making it easy to determine when you are on the main tally page.  This page allows the user to “drill-down” using the underlined links.  When drilling into the data, users can navigate back to the main tally page by selecting the underlined link for the respective count at the top of the page.  The main tally page will also be the place to “add birds” on the day of the count

At the completion of a 24-hour period.  The count is then closed and considered “Completed”.

For more information or suggestions, please send to chuck@countday.org

Countday.org is brought to you by the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (link www.BSBO.org)