Welcome

Congratulations!

The computer program you just installed will soon make you the local birding expert. Thayer Birding Software and the team at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have joined forces to bring you the ultimate birding software.

Guide to Birds of North America version 4, is an incredible DVD featuring 700 bird species seen in the continental United States and Canada. It includes over 2,500 color photos. Most species have photos of the male and female. Alternate plumages as well as juveniles and in-flight photos are also included for many species. 653 recordings of birds include a variety of songs, alarm calls, drumming and more! Songs are from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Finally, 275 video clips show the birds in action, as well as some interesting bird behavior.

Birds of My State or Province includes the 300 birds most often seen in the area you selected. This DVD disk actually includes all the birds of North America, even though you may have installed a program with just birds from your state or province. If you decide you want to see all the birds, you can buy a new license key that shows you all 700 birds. Call 800-865-2473 to order.

 

image\ebx_758506581.gif v4 Desktop icon

There are six main sections you will want to explore. Each of these has its own blue button at the top of the page. The six sections are: Field Guide; ID Wizard; Quizzes; Sightings; Custom Lists and Handbook.

image\ebx_-1872421606.gif Click Field Guide to open a Field Guide installed on your computer. You can then see information about any bird in the Field Guide. This is just like using a field guide book. Only now you can hear the birds as well as see the birds.

Type in a bird’s name in the first box or click the small arrow to the right of the name to see a scrollable list of birds. The other two boxes let you display a bird’s name in one of ten different ways! Again, just click the black arrows to see your choices. Click the funnel icon to use the filter to see only birds from one geographic area or one bird family.

Click the yellow zoom button to enlarge the bird’s image. If you are not sure which bird you saw, click the compare button to show two birds at once. Click The Birder’s Handbook to read about the bird’s nesting, breeding and foraging techniques. Use the view similar feature to see the five birds most often confused with the bird you have selected. Use the view related to see all the birds in the same family. The Spectrogram will let you see images of a bird’s song. You can now add your own comments for each bird in the My Comments section!

By clicking Tools in the Menu bar and then clicking Options and then selecting Name List, you can even have the bird names appear in French, Spanish, German or English. (In Mac computers, click eViewer and then click Preferences and then click Name List.)

image\ebx_1136687766.gif The Identification Wizard can help you identify unfamiliar birds. Simply select the color, size, habitat, field marks and/or location of your bird and the program will list every species that matches your description. A popular feature is the ability to select a song pattern to help identify a bird – even if you did not see the bird!

Click Photo Gallery to see a photo of every bird that matches your description. A new feature lets you click a “secondary view” that displays photos of females, juveniles or birds in flight – not every bird you see is a male in breeding plumage!

image\ebx_1529534257.gif Almost 700 Quizzes are included with the program – and you can make your own quizzes as well. Tabs let you select sources of quizzes such as Locations or Bird Groups, for example. Click the Quizzes tab to see the most popular quiz categories such as “A Quiz for New Birders,” "Birding Hot Spots," "Christmas Bird Counts," and "Favorite Birds." Just click the plus sign or the triangle in front of a category name to reveal hundreds of fun quizzes.

The Custom List tab lets you take quizzes on any of the Custom Lists you created yourself or downloaded from the Thayer Forums.

Once you choose a quiz, you can then select a quiz type: Multiple Choice, Fill-in-the-Blank, Flash Card or Pick One. With the Quiz Setup screens, you can fine-tune the photos, videos and songs you will see during a quiz – or just jump straight to the “Take Quiz” button.

image\ebx_1306590294.gif This software includes a basic listing and record keeping program to help you remember the birds you have seen. Record you bird sightings by clicking the Sightings button. You may then print out a Life List report or a variety of Sightings reports. For a more advanced listing and record keeping program, we recommend Birder's Diary.

image\ebx_-2123338408.gifCreate Custom Lists of birds. Group various birds together in any way you can imagine. Use your custom lists to take a quiz on the birds in your list. Study these birds using the Field Guide or display them as a screen saver. Export bird songs to you iPod (for your own personal use only.) Perhaps you want to study all the large, wetland birds in your state. Use the ID Wizard to help you find all these birds and then save them as a custom list called “Large Wetland Birds” for later use. You can create hundreds of separate lists! You can share your custom lists with others at the Thayer Birding Software Forum.

image\ebx_384069431.gif Learn more about birds and specific bird species. The Birder’s Handbook is a 700+ page book that is included in electronic format. Read one of the 250 essays about birds or study the species that interest you. Find out what they eat, the type of nest they build, the number of eggs they lay, the number of days it takes to fledge and more.

If you have a question about how to use this software program, there are many ways to find the answer.

Note: Before you leave this Welcome page, here are a few tips to help you navigate around this Help file.

1. To go back one screen, click the “Back” button near the top of the page.
2. Words underlined in Green will take you to another page within this Help file.
3. Words underlined in Blue will take you to a web site on the Internet.
4. Click “Help Topics” to see more topics.
5. Double-click on a purple book icon to expand the list of Help topics.
6. Double-click on a topic to see the full article.