Export

Your records are yours, and there are three ways to take them out: as records in a format another system understands, as a species list, or as a report. All of it works on every device — Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and the web app — and it covers everything in your account, wherever it was recorded.

Exporting records

Open Tools ▸ Export Records.

Choose the Format. Records can be exported as Bird Journal, eBird or BirdTrack. If the one you want is not listed it needs installing — find that Record Format in the Library and press Install.

Then set the Range. All does what it says; Since Last Export covers only what you have added since you last exported in that format. The second is what makes keeping eBird or BirdTrack up to date painless — export as often as you like and never think about which entries you have already sent.

Beneath that is a list of your entries, with species counts for each wildlife category. Use the filters and the tick boxes to choose exactly what goes.

Press Export. The file is prepared and then handed to you in whichever way suits the device:

• Windows and Mac save it to your Downloads folder, and offer a link to show it there.
• iPhone, iPad and Android open the share sheet, so you can send it wherever you want it.
• The web app downloads it through your browser.

Two things worth knowing about the eBird and BirdTrack formats. Both cover birds only. And where an entry holds more than one observation of the same species, they are combined into one — those systems expect a single row per species per visit.

BirdTrack also needs a position for every location you have added yourself. If one has no GeoTag, Bird Journal produces a list of the locations to fix instead of an export file. Add the GeoTags on the Locations screen and export again. Built-in locations — countries, counties and so on — are exempt, so this only ever concerns your own.

Sending it on

To BirdTrack

In BirdTrack, open the menu and choose Upload records, then browse for the file and follow the steps.

To eBird

Cornell’s own article covers this in detail: uploading spreadsheet data to eBird.

Note that eBird’s import accepts only the Incidental, Historical, Stationary, Travelling and Area protocols, and a number of fields you can enter on eBird directly cannot be set through an import at all. Those are eBird’s limits rather than ours, so requests for them are best sent to Cornell.

Exporting a species list

On the Species screen, Tools ▸ Export Species List saves the list as it currently stands — filters and all — so it is an easy way to get, say, everything you recorded in one county in one year.

Exporting a report

With a report open, choose Tools ▸ Export.

It takes a moment to prepare, then arrives the same way an export of records does. Exporting reports is part of Bird Journal Premium. The Checklist report is the one exception — it cannot be exported, and Export is greyed out while it is open.