Getting Started
How to use Bird Reports
The Bird Reports website is designed to be simple to use, so you can spend most of your time reading about the birds that have been seen recently instead of trawling round the website looking for information.
If you are interested in bird reports from a certain part of the country, click on the map. That brings up a list of counties or smaller regions in that area. Click on a county and that will take you to a list of all the relevant websites and blogs for the county. If you click on the ‘latest sightings’ you will go straight to the ‘latest sighting’ page on the selected site. If the website does not report latest sightings, it will take you to the information that is available.
The websites and blogs you are visiting should open in a separate window so, when you’ve finished reading, you simply shut them down. That takes you back to the bird reports page you have just come from and links to other interesting sites.
If you want to look in another area of the country, click the back button and you’ll see the map again – click on another region and off you go.
The website is not meant to do anything clever – it is simply a way for you to cover as many sites as you want in the time you’ve got available.
We hope you enjoy using it.
How to Submit a New Site
There has never been a better time to start recording the birds in your local area and giving other birders access to details of what you have seen. There are lots of really excellent examples of how to publish bird records online - often using free blogsites.
If you are maintaining a website or blog that does not yet appear on Bird Reports, it will only take you a couple of minutes to submit the site.
From the home page select ‘Submit New Site’ from the menu bar. This opens up an Application Form.
When you enter the name of the site, keep it simple so that others can easily identify it. And don’t forget to put a description too.
Use the drop down menu to select what type of site it is (that helps us know where to position it) and, if you’d like people to contact you with records, enter your email address.
Enter the website or blog address in full and, if you have a JPEG image of a logo or photo that you’d like to upload, please do so. If you’re submitting a personal blog, you could even upload a picture of yourself.
Finally, please select the area to which your website refers – and click ‘Send Application’.
If you make a mistake, don’t worry – you can’t recall what you’ve already sent, but, if you send another application, we’ll delete the original one and replace it with the most recent version.
Please note:
Please make sure that any links that you supply always show the latest sightings. If the link shows 'September sightings' it will be out of date by 1st October and will need resubmitting.
Updating Existing Site Details
What if your site is already up, but you want to add information or change it in some way – a new image or a new description. That’s easy too. Just send in a new application and we’ll replace the original details with the new ones.
Who Checks The Content?
We check the content – every site application will be checked by us before it goes live on the system. This is to ensure that only relevant and appropriate material gets included on bird reports. If you find any inappropriate links please let us know immediately and we will remove them.
What other content is available from Bird Reports?
You will have access to European, American and other websites from around the world.
You will also be able to access individual birders blogs and follow them on their travels.
As with the UK birding sites, if you come across sites for birders that are not on Bird Reports, please submit them to us and we’ll happily put them onto the site.