Complete lists are often considered as the holy grail of the on-line bird portals, as they provide much more quality information than casual observations. Did you know that by reporting all birds that you were able to identify by sight and sound during your outing, you can directly contribute to national atlas projects, production of phenological graphs and EBBA2 Live Farmland or BirdFlu Radar?

First, some introductory points on starting to collect complete lists. Basically, every complete list starts by a simple conscious decision in the mind of the observer before going out into the field. In short, you decide to report all birds that you see and hear and can identify during your outing (in a given place and time period), meaning that you are not omitting any bird species on purpose. Do not be discouraged by the fact that once you decide to make a complete list, suddenly some species that you are sure are living in that place are nowhere to be heard or seen. It is critical to remember that only very rarely all bird species present in a given place and time period will be detected even by the most skilled observers, therefore, it’s perfectly normal for complete lists to only contain some of the species that are regularly seen in a given place and time period. Having this in mind, it is good to know, that collecting complete lists can be done on almost any occasion (e.g. by randomly looking out of a window, stopping with a car etc.). 

Therefore, why should you decide to provide a bit more extra effort in your birding outings? 

• By collecting complete lists, you are informing the potential data users not only about the species that were present but also about the species that were absent, a crucial part of information that is impossible to conclude with casual observations only.
• This type of information can then further contribute to analyses for various scientific and conservation projects. At the current moment, they could be used on European level for EBBA2 Live Farmland and BirdFlu Radar. Furthermore, these types of data are also commonly used on national levels for producing modelled maps (probability of occurrence of bird species) in national atlas projects.
• Complete lists also enable the production of phenological graphs, a piece of information that is surely of much interest to observers.

In conclusion, you can add a lot of extra value to your observations by deciding to collect complete lists, and through it, contribute to answering scientific and conservation questions in current, but also future times.

We hope we’ve given you the boost you need to get out in nature and make complete lists that you can upload to our OpenBirdMaps database.The observations uploaded here are synchronised with the EuroBirdPortal and SEE Lists platforms, where data from the continent are gathered and can be analysed together.