Taxonomic Updates at a Glance
A number on a menu isn’t the sort of thing that usually earns a blog post of its own. So treat this as a post about what it’s for.
The number counts the species in your journal that are waiting on you after a taxonomy update — the ones that have been removed, or split in two, where only you can say which bird you actually saw. Open Tools ▸ Taxonomic Updates and there they are, with the count dropping away as you work through them.
That’s the whole of it. It shows up wherever you use Bird Journal — computer, phone or tablet — and because the count travels with your account, an update you install on your laptop leaves the badge waiting on your phone next time you pick it up. Beta testers have had it for a few weeks; it’s on for everyone now.
Why now
On its own, a badge is a convenience. The list was always there under Tools; you just had to think to look, and nothing ever suggested it was worth looking.
The honest reason we built it now is that we’re about to lean on it rather hard.
Last month AviList landed in the Library — the new unified global standard that finally pulls the competing world checklists into a single agreed taxonomy. Getting it into Bird Journal was the easy half. The bigger job is bringing everyone onto it, and Bird Journal carries a long tail of separate regional and national lists — BOU, ABA, AOU, SACC, CBRO, IRBC and the rest — each with its own view on how species are split, lumped, named and ordered. We want to fold those into whichever world taxonomy represents them best, and settle in time on AviList.
The plan is that it feels like nothing much
Moving a journal off a list you’ve recorded against for twenty years sounds like precisely the sort of upheaval nobody wants, which is why we’re not building it as one.
A migration will arrive as taxonomic updates — the same place, the same list, the same badge. The great majority of your species will simply move across on their own. What surfaces for you are the genuine choices: the splits where the new taxonomy recognises two birds where you recorded one, and only you know which you saw. Everything else just goes.
That’s an early look rather than a finished screen, but it’s the shape of the thing: the bulk completes by itself, a short list of decisions waits for you, and the old taxonomy is ready to retire once you’ve worked through them. At your own pace — there’s no deadline, and nothing is lost either way.
Meanwhile
If you’ve a number sitting on your Tools menu today, it’s worth a couple of minutes. Those are species already waiting on a decision from an update you’ve installed, and clearing them now is a few fewer to think about later. Our guide to taxonomy updates walks through it if you’d like a hand.
And if there’s no badge at all, that’s the other good outcome: nothing needs you.
As ever, thank you for your support — and do let us know how you get on.