Latest Sightings Info Page

Bucks Sightings

Submission via Website

Submissions of sightings may be made directly to this website via the "Latest Bucks Sightings" page. Any records submitted in this way are immediately available for other birders to view (but see Note below) and any sightings of "scarce" birds are emailed to members of the Bucksbirders email group.

Records submitted in this way are automatically made available to the Club Recorder and the County Recorders. Therefore it is not necessary for records to be submitted to the recorders at the month/year end.

Submitting Sightings

In order to submit your bird sightings you will need to register. To do this follow these steps:

Visit the "Buckinghamshire Bird News" page (Latest Sightings).
Click on "Register", enter your personal details and click on Save. Please note that you must use your correct name and not an alias or just initials. This is to allow sightings to be correctly attributed to observers in subsequent monthly and annual reports.
An email will be sent to the email address that you registered with. This contains a web link which you will need to click on in order to confirm your registration.
After this you will be able to submit your sightings.

To submit your sightings:

Visit the "Buckinghamshire Bird News" page (Latest Sightings).

Click on "Sign In", enter your login name and password.

Click on "Submit Bird News".

Fill in the following fields

Date (this is set to today's date by default).

Select the site from the pull down list. Note that typing the first few letters of the site will help you home in on your selection.

Alternatively, if the site is not listed, you may enter the site in the blank box. Please note that a map reference is required in this case.

Select the species from the pull down list. Note that typing the first few letters of the species name will help you home in on your selection.

If you are fortunate enough to find a species that has not previously been recorded in the county, then select "MEGA" and enter the species name in the notes field.

If you are submitting a sighting that was made by someone else then please record the finders name (or source) in the Notes field. e.g. Found by Joe Bloggs   OR       per Birdguides.

Please enter any other useful or interesting information in the notes field.

Other fields on the entry form are optional. Some of these are explained below.

1.       Tick Boxes: Tick as appropriate.

      a.     Probable
b.     Possible
c.     Escape
d.     Confidential – By ticking this box the sighting will not appear on the website or be posted as an email. Tick this if it is felt that that the sighting should be withheld. The information will however be made available to the administrators and may be used in later publications. Please note that some species that are scarce breeding birds in the county are automatically flagged as confidential.
e.      Send Email Alert – This flag indicates if an email will be sent to the Bucksbirders email group when the sighting is submitted. For commoner species this box is left empty, but for any species classified as “Scarce” or higher, then this box is automatically ticked. Users may change the flag setting as they see fit. Sometimes it is nice to post an email about odd behaviour in a common species and sometimes it is better to suppress an email if you know an email has already been posted to the group. For “Rare and “Very Rare” species, emails are always posted (unless flagged as confidential).

Click on Add Sighting. Note that the species name is added to the top left hand corner of the form under the "Your Sightings" list. You may enter up to ten species for one site, after which you will have to select the site again. Also note that a keyboard shortcut may be used instead of clicking on "Add Sighting".

When you have finished adding species (or reached the limit of ten species) you may edit or delete any of the sightings you have made. When you have done this click on "Submit" and your sightings will be added to the website database. Details of any scarce sightings will be emailed to the email group.

Continue submitting sightings as necessary.

When finished "Sign Out" and close the browser window.

Note: Sightings of some potential breeding birds will excluded from the sightings website and not sent to the email group. However, if the website administrator/s feel that the publication of any excluded sightings do not constitute a security threat to the species in question, then the sighting will be "released" to the website and email group.

To view the species settings for scarce species which will generate and email and for those scarce breeding species that may suppressed, visit the Species Information Page.

Editing Sightings

It is possible for the submitter of a sighting to edit or delete that record. The buttons that control this are only available if the user is logged in.

Viewing Sightings

When visiting the sightings page all of the sightings for that day are automatically displayed. If the user then logs in, then the sightings are displayed according to that users personal settings. The user can choose to change the order of the display or filter out the commoner species.

It is possible to display sightings for previous days by clicking on the “Previous Day” button.

Personal Settings

When logged in click on “Account” to set user preferences. This will enable to edit your personal details and to adjust the site settings to your preferences. Please note that your First Name and Surname should be in full, as the records need to be clearly assigned to an observer and not just a set of initials. The preferences are described below.:

Bird News Sort Order – You can make your default settings as species order, date added, site, observer, rarity level, etc.

Bird News Filter – You may set this to display only species of a certain rarity level and higher. Useful for excluding the very common species.

Species Order – This may be set to “Taxonomic” or “Alphabetical” order.

Species Names – This may be set to “British Vernacular Name” or “International English Name”.

Terms and Conditions

By registering on www.Buckbirdclub.co.uk (or Goingbirding.co.uk) you agree to abide by these terms and conditions.

General

We reserve the right to remove your access at any time and without notice or explanation
We reserve the right to change these Terms and Conditions at any time and without notice
You are responsible for managing your account details

Bird news

You don't deliberately submit false information
We reserve the right to edit and delete your submissions at any time and without notice or explanation
We will not be held responsible for the accuracy of the information

Photos

You have taken the photograph yourself or have the permission of the photographer to submit it
The photo was taken in Buckinghamshire
You grant us royalty-free rights to use the photo in any way on the website. However, the copyright remains with the photographer
We may cut, edit and crop your photo as we see fit
We may remove your photo at any time and without notice or explanation
Your name will always appear by your photo but we may edit or delete any comments you provide

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