BirdSite  a catalog of media for birds worldwide

My goal in building this site was to create a BugGuide-like site for birds, a place where people could go to help identify birds that they saw.

There are differences from BugGuide. I am also letting users upload bird sounds which you can play back on the website (example: (Audio: Red-breasted Nuthatch - Call)). I'm handling locations in a different manner that I hope will make mapping simpler (when I get a chance to work on that). I also don't think we need to focus as much on providing species information, since there are so many good bird websites out there with that info.

We're starting to get some more photo uploads, which is great, but some will have to be culled in order to stick with the plan. The ideal photo is a sharp image of a wild bird in its natural area. But since we're trying to build up a library of images for people to explore, it's OK to post a less-than-perfect image if nothing else is available. As we get better images over time, some older ones might be dropped, but users will have a voice in deciding this. If you post an image that you know is not very good, please add the tag 'placeholder' to it. That will help us to remove it if much better photos of the same species are posted.

It's acceptable to post multiple images of the same bird as long as each image provides useful information, like different angles that help in identifying the species.

Captive birds can be posted until we get good wild bird shots. Captives should be tagged with 'captive' and the location should be listed as just "Earth" so future location maps will not be misleading.

Feel free to follow up to this topic with questions or ideas for other rules/goals of the website.

Can you please show me an example of how to add captive. I've uploaded to images of 'captives' and would like to correct them.

Hi JC, you set 'captive' by putting it in the Tags field on your image. I think that parrot (Image: Parrot) you posted was captive, so I added the tag. If you go to that image and click Edit, you can look for the Tags field and see the 'captive' text there. You can set that on your other image as well.

Thanks. Is there a set standard? Is it captive or Captive

I'm going with lowercase for tags, unless for some reason we wanted to tag a proper name.

I take it the "placeholder" should be added to the tag field and separated with a comma and space.

Furthermore, do I take captive to mean a bird not in its native living environment as opposed to a bird in a cage. In either case people will still need to identify something they saw.

Another question. Where do we place colours of birds and will the standard english used be UK or US English.

BTW Mike, you're doing a great job and I for one, am appreciative of your time and effort.

Hi JC,

Yes, I'm thinking 'captive' goes for any bird that is artificially placed in a location...cage, or zoo, botanical garden, aviary, etc. If a bird is actually out of place, but by natural means, that's OK...those create quite a buzz among birders.

Captive images still need to be identified or they're not much use on the site.

I guess you could note the colors in the description. I have an idea in mind to make it uniform and let people search on matching colors, but I haven't worked on it yet. That should make the US/British English distinction less critical.

Wheels are turning right now, imagining the if then statements you're about to write.