Import from AviSys

Bird Journal reads AviSys records directly, so there is no need to rearrange anything by hand.

Exporting from AviSys

• Open AviSys.
• Choose List Records from the menu bar.
• Choose Normal, then List. Export everything in one go rather than in batches — species and locations then only need resolving once.
• Choose Date for the sequence, then OK.
• Choose Export.
• Choose Comma Delimited ASCII File when prompted.
• Three yes/no questions follow, about sighting attributes, expanding sighting places and a shorter date format. Answer Yes, Yes, No.

Save the file somewhere you will find it again.

Importing into Bird Journal

You can do this on any device, and a free account is enough.

• Install Bird Journal and create an account, if you have not already.
• Install the AviSys Record Format and the Birds of the World (Clements) taxonomy from the library. Press Library, then filter to Record Formats and Taxonomies to find them quickly.
• Open Tools ▸ Import.
• Select the AviSys Record Format, press Browse to find your exported file, and press Next. Check your preferred taxonomy is selected on this screen too — Bird Journal reaches for that one first when deciding which species a name means.
• Match everything left unmatched. The import article explains that step in detail.
• Press Import.

What comes across, and what changes shape

• Counts. AviSys requires a count on every record; Bird Journal does not. A count of one is therefore imported as unspecified, which is a more honest record of how much detail you actually noted.
• Notes. Bird Journal groups observations into an entry — one visit — so notes about the weather or the habitat can be written once for the whole visit rather than repeated against every bird. AviSys attaches notes to individual sightings only, so that is where they are imported: nothing is lost, but you will see some repetition where the note really described the visit. Moving those up to the entry afterwards is worth doing if you have the patience.
• Properties are not imported as properties, though their codes remain within the notes.
• Locations are created, but not the hierarchy above them. Use the Locations screen afterwards to add parent locations and tidy the structure.

Location codes that will not match

AviSys location codes do not always follow the ISO 3166-2 standard that Bird Journal uses, so some cannot be matched automatically and will appear among the unmatched items. These are the ones that come up most often:

AviSys	What it means	Match it to
UH	Hawaii — not a country	United States (US)
ZB	Azerbaijan	Azerbaijan (AZ)
ZR	Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo	Congo, Democratic Republic of the (CD)
IB	Borneo — spans three countries	Indonesia (ID), Brunei (BN) or Malaysia (MY), as appropriate
SW	Sulawesi — not a country	Indonesia (ID)
ZT, ZO	Ocean near Antarctica	Antarctica (AQ)
AA	Antarctica	Antarctica (AQ)
RZ	Rodriguez — the island of Rodrigues, not a country	Mauritius (MU)
CS	Moluccas — not a country	Indonesia (ID)
LN	Lithuania	Lithuania (LT)
SS	Timor and Roti — not a country	Indonesia (ID)

Borneo is not yet represented in its own right in Bird Journal, which is why it has to be split between the three.

If you have a code that is not listed, match it to the country the place actually belongs to — and tell us which one it was, so we can add it here.