A desktop application for exploring and analysing your personal eBird data
Quick Start
Analyzing Your eBird Data
Working with Photos
Working with Recordings
Viewing Community Sightings
Miscellaneous
This section gets you from a fresh install to your first results in five minutes.
With a browser such as Chrome, Safari, or Edge, go to https://ebird.org/downloadMyData, and choose Request My Observations. eBird will email you a link to a .zip file containing your complete sightings history. Open the email, click the link, and save the file somewhere easy to find. Yearbirder can open the .zip file directly — there is no need to unzip it first. By default, most browsers will save the file in your Downloads folder.
Launch Yearbirder. Click the Open button on the toolbar (or choose File → Open eBird data file…). Navigate to the .zip file you downloaded and click Open. Yearbirder loads your data and displays list of the species in the file.
Browse through the options on the filter on the left side of the screen. Set a few filter options, like county or family, and then click the Species button on the toolbar. A new window opens showing the species you have recorded, sorted taxonomically, along with the first date, most recent date, and checklist count for each. You can click on the column headers to sort the columns. You can also right-click on any information in the list to send that information to the filter.
You are up and running. Everything else in this guide describes these features in detail.
Note that if some checklists include exotic species, the totals that Yearbirder calculates may not match the totals reported by eBird. The data file you download from eBird does not specify which sightings are exotics, so Yearbirder cannot exclude them from its totals.
Yearbirder allows many report, map, and graph windows to be open at the same time. The main window contains:
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Open | Open an eBird data file |
| Print the active window | |
| Create PDF | Export the active window to PDF |
| Clear all filters | Reset every filter to its default (all) state |
| Species | Open a Species List window |
| Locations | Open a Locations List window |
| Checklists | Open a Checklists List window |
| Locations | Open an interactive location map |
| Families | Open the Families window |
| Date Totals | Open the Date Totals report |
| Location Totals | Open the Location Totals report |
| Compare Lists | Open the Compare Lists report |
| Trip Report | Open the comprehensive Trip Report |
| Photos | Open the Photos gallery |
| Find | Search for checklists by text |
Any number of windows can be open at the same time. Use Windows → Tile Windows or Windows → Cascade Windows to arrange them. Close individual windows with their close button, or close all at once with Windows → Close All Windows.
Each window's title bar shows a descriptive label that reflects the active filter — for example, "Species: Warbler; New York; 2024 (42 Species)".
Choose File → Open eBird data file… or click the Open toolbar button. Yearbirder accepts the standard eBird download data file (typically named something like MyEBirdData.zip).
Loading time depends on the size of your dataset. A typical dataset of 10,000–50,000 sightings loads in a few seconds. Once loaded, the status bar shows the total number of sightings and species.
To avoid having to open your eBird data file manually every time you use Yearbirder, save it as a preference (see Section 39 — Saving Preferences) so that Yearbirder opens it automatically at startup.
Choose File → Close eBird data file to unload the current dataset. Any open windows that depend on the data will close automatically.
Yearbirder reads the following fields from your eBird data file:
The Sighting Filter panel is the primary way to focus every report and list on the data you care about. It is docked on the left side of the main window and always visible. All open windows update immediately whenever you change any filter setting.
The location filters are hierarchical — selecting a more specific level automatically constrains the broader levels. You can filter at any one of these levels:
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Region | A broad geographic region (e.g., North America) |
| Country | A specific country (e.g., United States) |
| State | A state or province |
| County | A county or sub-region within a state |
| Location | A specific named eBird location |
Select **All** in any drop-down to clear that level's filter.
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Order | Bird order (e.g., Passeriformes) |
| Family | Bird family (e.g., Parulidae – Wood-Warblers) |
| Species | A single species name |
| Name Search | Free-text search; matches any part of a species' common name. Prefix with s: to search scientific names (s:Buteo) or b: to search banding codes (b:OSFL) |
The taxonomic filters also follow a hierarchy for the purposes of the window title: if a Species is selected, Family and Order are not shown in the title (they are implied). If only a Family is selected, Order is not shown. Only the most specific level selected is displayed.
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Date Options | Quick presets: No date filter, This year, Last year, etc. |
| Start Date | Beginning of a custom date range (yyyy-mm-dd) |
| End Date | End of a custom date range (yyyy-mm-dd) |
Seasonal filters let you examine a recurring window within each year regardless of the year itself — useful for studying migration patterns.
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Seasonal Range Options | Quick presets for common seasonal windows |
| Start Seasonal Range | Month and day marking the start of the seasonal window |
| End Seasonal Range | Month and day marking the end of the seasonal window |
For example, setting a seasonal range of May 1 – May 31 shows all May sightings across all years.
If you have configured a My County or My Patch in Preferences, two quick-jump buttons appear at the very top of the Sighting Filter. Clicking My County sets the filter to your saved county (and automatically fills in its state, country, and region above it). Clicking My Patch does the same for your saved specific birding location, including its county, state, country, and region. These buttons are hidden when no value has been set. To configure them, see Section 39 — Saving Preferences.
The Media Filter panel is hidden until you open a media catalog (see Section 20), at which point it appears automatically on the right side of the main window. It filters photo-related results in addition to the Sighting Filter — only photos that match both the Sighting Filter and the Media Filter are shown. Press Cmd-M (Mac) or Ctrl-M (Windows) to show or hide the panel at any time.
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Rating Range | Minimum and maximum photo rating (your personal quality score) |
| Species | Show only species that have photos / that have no photos |
| Camera | Filter by specific camera model |
| Lens | Filter by specific lens model |
| Shutter Speed Range | Minimum and maximum shutter speed |
| Aperture Range | Minimum and maximum aperture (f-stop) |
| Focal Length Range | Minimum and maximum focal length in mm |
| ISO Range | Minimum and maximum ISO sensitivity |
All Media Filter fields work as range selectors. Select **All** to disable a particular filter.
Below the photo filters, a collapsible Recordings section filters your sound recordings (click the Recordings ▾ heading to expand or collapse it):
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Rating Range | Minimum and maximum recording rating (your personal quality score) |
| Recorded | Show only species that have a recording / that have no recording |
| Channels | Filter by Mono or Stereo recordings |
| Duration Range | Minimum and maximum recording length |
| Sample Rate Range | Minimum and maximum sample rate (in kHz, e.g. 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 96 kHz). Yearbirder reads each recording's sample rate from the file itself when you add it. |
| Bit Depth | A set of checkboxes — one for each bit depth found in your catalog (for example 16-bit, 24-bit, or 32-bit float). Tick any combination to show only recordings of those bit depths. |
| Recording Device | Filter by the device a recording was made with (for example ZOOM F3 or Shure MV88). Yearbirder reads the device from the file's metadata when you add it; recordings whose files carry no device information are grouped under Unknown. |
| Microphone | Filter by the microphone a recording was made with. No audio file records this, so the setting appears only once you have assigned a rig to at least one recording (see Section 26 — Recording gear). Recordings with no rig assigned yet are grouped under Unknown, which is the quickest way to find the ones still to be labelled. |
The Sample Rate Range, Bit Depth, and Recording Device controls list only the values that actually occur in your catalog, so you will never see an option that returns no results. The bit-depth checkboxes are a multi-select: leaving them all unticked disables the filter, while ticking two or more shows recordings matching any of the ticked depths.
Open with Lists → Species or the Species toolbar button.
The Species List shows every bird species (and other taxa) you have recorded that matches the current filter. Each row shows:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Tax | Taxonomic sort order number |
| Species | Common name (click to open the Individual Species window) |
| First | Date of your first sighting of this species |
| Last | Date of your most recent sighting |
| Checklists | Number of checklists on which this species appears |
| % of Checklists | The percentage of your total checklists that include this species |
Species that are not full species (slash species, spuhs, hybrids) are listed separately and marked distinctly.
The window title shows the total count — for example, "Species: New York (42 Species)".
Click any column header to sort the list by that column; click it again to reverse the order. The small arrow in the header shows which column the list is sorted by and in which direction. Lists open sorted by their leftmost column — taxonomic order, in the case of the Species List.
Date columns can be sorted in a second way. Right-click a date column header — First or Last here — and choose between:
The two answer different questions. A date sort tells you when something happened; a seasonal sort tells you when in the year you see it. Sorting the Species List by First seasonally lays your species out in the order they appear through the birding year — the resident birds and early migrants at the top, the late-autumn arrivals at the bottom — regardless of which year you happened to first record each one.
While a list is sorted seasonally its date headers read First (seasonal) and Last (seasonal), so it is always clear which of the two orderings you are looking at. Choosing Sort by date returns the headers and the ordering to normal. The arrow still reverses the direction as usual, so a descending seasonal sort runs from December back to January. Dates that share the same day of the year are listed oldest year first.
Seasonal sorting is available wherever a list has a date column: the First and Last columns here and in the Locations List, the Date column in the Checklists List and in Find Results, and the Date column on the Date tab of Date Totals.
The same ordering is a sort key in the photo and recording browse windows, where it is called Seasonal Date — see Section 21 and Section 27.
Click any species name to open an Individual Species window (see Section 19) showing the full history of your sightings of that species.
Right-clicking a row in the species table offers options to set the species as the active filter, open associated web pages, or open the individual species window.
Open with Lists → Locations or the Locations toolbar button.
Shows all locations where you have recorded sightings under the current filter:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Location | The eBird location name |
| First | Date of your first visit |
| Last | Date of your most recent visit |
The count of locations is shown in the window title, e.g., "Locations: All species, locations, and dates (702 Locations)".
Right-clicking a location lets you set it as the active location filter, or open it on a map.
The First and Last date columns can also be sorted by day of year, ignoring the year — right-click either header and choose Sort by day of year (seasonal) to group the places you visit at the same time each year. See Section 6 — Sorting dates by day of year.
Open with Lists → Checklists or the Checklists toolbar button.
Shows every checklist that matches the current filter:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Country | Country where the checklist was submitted |
| State | State/province |
| County | County (if recorded) |
| Location | Location name |
| Date | Checklist date |
| Time | Start time |
| Species | Number of species on that checklist |
| eBird | Green button — click to open this checklist on the eBird website in your browser (requires an eBird API key in Preferences) |
Click any row to see the comments recorded for that checklist.
Right-clicking a row lets you set the checklist's date, country, state, county, or location as the active filter.
When the Checklists List is filtered to a single checklist (showing only that checklist's species), an eBird button also appears in the sidebar panel on the left, opening the same checklist on the eBird website.
The Date column can also be sorted by day of year, ignoring the year — right-click the Date header and choose Sort by day of year (seasonal) to see which checklists fall at the same point in the season across all your years. See Section 6 — Sorting dates by day of year.
Open with Lists → Families or the Families toolbar button.
The Families window has two panes:
Click a family name in the left pane to populate the right pane. This is an efficient way to browse your sightings by taxonomic family — for example, quickly seeing all your warbler or shorebird records.
The window title shows the number of families, e.g., "Families: New York (12 Families)".
Open with Reports → Date Totals or the Date Totals toolbar button.
The Date Totals window presents three side-by-side tables:
One row per year, showing how many species and checklists you recorded in that year.
One row per calendar month (January through December), showing totals across all years.
One row per individual date on which you submitted a checklist, showing species and checklist counts for that date.
All three tables are sortable by any column. This report is useful for identifying your most productive years, your best months for birding, and your record single-day species counts.
On the Date tab, the Date column can also be sorted by day of year — right-click its header and choose Sort by day of year (seasonal) to bring the same calendar day from every year together and see which times of year you bird hardest. See Section 6 — Sorting dates by day of year.
The window title shows the total number of unique dates, e.g., "Date Totals: All species, locations, and dates (365 Dates)".
Open with Reports → Location Totals or the Location Totals toolbar button.
Location Totals presents five tables on separate tabs:
| Tab | Description |
|---|---|
| Region Totals | Species counts by broad geographic region |
| Country Totals | Species counts by country |
| State Totals | Species counts by state/province |
| County Totals | Species counts by county |
| Location Totals | Species counts by individual named location |
Each table shows rank, name, species count, and checklist count. Sorted by rank (most species first) by default.
Open with Reports → Trip Report or the Trip Report toolbar button.
The Trip Report is the most comprehensive single report in Yearbirder. It combines multiple dimensions of your data into one window with multiple tabs:
Create PDF turns the Trip Report into a formatted document: a title block and summary, the report's tables, the map, and the Itinerary as its own section, with the generation date and page number on every page.
The window title includes a species count, e.g., "Trip Report: New York (87 Species)".
Open with Reports → Compare Lists or by clicking the Compare Lists button in the toolbar.
Compare Lists lets you select two separate lists and compare their species. This is useful for questions like:
To compare lists:
To change a selection, click the highlighted card again to deselect it, then click a different card. Clicking an unselected card when both slots are already filled automatically replaces List B.
Results are displayed in three columns: species unique to List A on the left, species on both lists in the centre, and species unique to List B on the right. Double-click any species name to open its Individual Species window.
Open with Reports → Statistics.
The Statistics report presents a comprehensive numerical summary of your data under the current filter. It is displayed as a dark-background panel divided into three columns.
Your highest species-count dates and other ranked highlights.
Photo totals, top-rated species, and other photo statistics. At the bottom, the date the media catalog was last updated is shown.
Open with Community → Species List.
The Species List generates an interactive species checklist for the currently selected region using live data from the eBird API. It shows every full species on the eBird checklist for that region, in taxonomic order, and indicates which ones you have seen and — if a media catalog is open — which ones you have photographed.
The Species List requires two things:
When the Sighting Filter is set to a specific Location, the report queries that exact eBird location's species list — rather than falling back to the county. Private eBird locations (personal locations not shared publicly) are automatically detected and marked (Personal Location) in the report title. A note in the header explains that the seen/unseen counts for private locations reflect your own sightings only.
The header shows the region name, a subtitle summarising the active filter, and a stats bar with counts of species seen, not yet seen, and photographed. Each row in the body shows:
A row of buttons in the header lets you narrow the display:
The Seen/Not Seen buttons and the With Photo/No Photo buttons work independently — for example you can combine Seen and No Photo to find species you have recorded but not yet photographed. Clicking All resets both axes.
Click any species name to open an Individual Species window for that species.
Species data is provided by eBird.org. An internet connection is required each time the report is opened.
Open graphs from the Graphs menu. Every graph responds to the current Sighting Filter, shows a hover tooltip with details when you move the cursor over a data point or bar, and (for most graphs) opens a Species List window filtered to that point's context when you click it.
The Graphs menu is organised into four submenus by what each graph measures: Species, Locations, Checklists, and Timing & Seasonality.
Yearbirder uses a consistent colour scheme: charts based on sighting data use a blue theme, while charts produced when the Media Filter is active (i.e. based on photograph data) use a yellow theme. Several timing charts colour their data points by season, using this palette:
| Colour | Season | Months |
|---|---|---|
| Steel blue | Winter | December 20 – March 19 |
| Green | Spring | March 20 – June 19 |
| Golden | Summer | June 20 – September 19 |
| Orange | Fall | September 20 – December 19 |
All Timing & Seasonality dot charts let you hover a dot for the exact date, location(s), and species seen, and click to open a Species List for that date.
Yearbirder's Maps menu offers a range of interactive map types. All maps are pan-and-zoom capable using your mouse or trackpad, respond to the Sighting Filter, and open just like any other report. Hovering over a marker or bubble shows a tooltip; clicking most markers opens the Location window for that site.
Open with the Locations toolbar button or Map → Locations.
Plots every location where you have recorded sightings under the current filter as a circle marker, sized by species count. Hover over a marker to see the location name and species list. Click a marker to open the Location window for that site.
Open with Maps → Animated Lifer Map.
Animates your life list building geographically over time. Each dot represents a lifer — the first time you recorded a species anywhere in your database — placed at the sighting's GPS coordinates and revealed in chronological order. Dots are coloured on a cream-to-orange gradient from earliest to most recent lifer; the newest dot flashes blue before settling to its gradient colour when the next dot appears.
A control bar at the bottom of the map provides:
A tooltip showing the species name, lifer number, date, and location follows the animation automatically as each new dot appears. Hover any dot at any time to see its details; click a dot to open a popup with the same information.
Open with Maps → Animated First Sightings.
Animates the accumulation of new species under the current filter, revealing each species at the location where you first recorded it — in chronological order. Unlike the Animated Lifer Map, which always shows absolute life firsts, this map respects the active filter: apply a county filter to watch your county list grow, apply a year filter to replay a single year's additions, or apply any combination of region, family, or date filters to explore a specific context.
Dots are coloured on a cream-to-orange gradient — pale dots are earlier firsts, deep orange dots are more recent. The newest dot appears in bright red and settles to its gradient colour when the next dot arrives. A tooltip showing the species name, number, date, and location follows the animation automatically; hover any dot at any time to see its details.
The control bar is identical to the Animated Lifer Map:
Open with Maps → Bubble by Time.
A bubble map where each bubble represents a checklist location. Bubble area is proportional to the total cumulative time you have spent birding at that location (in minutes, summed across all matching checklists). Locations where you have invested the most time appear as the largest bubbles.
Hover over a bubble to see the location name, total time, and checklist count. If some checklists at a location have no recorded duration, the tooltip notes how many are untimed. Click a bubble to open the Location window for that site.
Open with Maps → Bubble by Checklists.
The same bubble map concept, but bubble area is proportional to the number of checklists submitted at each location rather than total time. Useful for seeing where you bird most frequently regardless of duration.
Hover over a bubble to see the location name, checklist count, and total time. Click a bubble to open the Location window for that site.
Open with Maps → Species Total Map.
A bubble map where bubble area is proportional to the number of species recorded at each location under the current filter. Slashes, spuhs, and hybrids are excluded from the species count using the same rules as the Species List. Apply a taxonomic filter to compare how many warblers — or any other group — you have found at each of your locations.
Hover over a bubble to see the location name and species count. Click a bubble to open the Location window for that site.
Open with Maps → Individuals Total Map.
A bubble map where bubble area is proportional to the total number of individual birds tallied at each location. Sightings recorded with an unknown count ("X" in eBird) contribute 1 to the total. The tooltip notes how many checklists contain at least one uncounted species.
Hover over a bubble to see the location name, individual count, and any caveat about uncounted entries. Click a bubble to open the Location window for that site.
The Geolocated Photos map has moved to the Photos menu. See Section 21.
Shaded region maps are accessed via Maps → Shaded Regions. Six geographic regions are available, each with two modes selectable from the By Species and By Checklists submenus.
All shaded region maps respond to the Sighting Filter — for example, set a Family filter to see which states you have recorded warblers in. Clicking a shaded region opens a Species List (By Species mode) or a Checklists List (By Checklists mode) filtered to that region.
Each region is shaded according to the number of distinct species you have recorded there under the current filter. Darker shading = more species. Hover over a region to see its name, species count, and a list of the most recently recorded species.
Each region is shaded according to the number of checklists you have submitted there. Hover over a region to see its name, checklist count, and the dates of your most recent visits (newest first).
| Menu entry | Coverage |
|---|---|
| US States | Contiguous United States, shaded by state |
| Canada Provinces | Canadian provinces and territories |
| India States | States and union territories of India |
| Great Britain Counties | Counties of England, Scotland, and Wales |
| US Lower 48 Counties | County-level detail for the contiguous US |
| World Countries | All countries worldwide |
The Individual Species window opens when you click a species name in the Species List, or from the right-click menu in most list windows.
It shows a comprehensive view of your sightings of one particular species:
If you have photos of the species in your media catalog, the highest-rated photo appears as a thumbnail in the window header, between the species data panes and the action buttons. The thumbnail scales to fit the available space without distortion. Click the thumbnail to open a Photos window showing all of your photos of that species.
Yearbirder uses a media catalog to associate photos on your hard drive with your eBird sightings. Once photos are associated, Yearbirder can show you all the photos you have taken of a species, or the photos from a particular day or location. The catalog stores file paths, dates, species names, ratings, and camera information. Think of it as a photo library that sits alongside your eBird data.
rufhum_20240514.jpg), BBL four-letter codes, and common-name words. Names are read word by word — the capital letters in LincolnsSparrow mark where the words divide — and the words that tell the birds on that checklist apart count most, so "Lincoln" decides the species rather than "Sparrow". Small typos are forgiven, and when two species are equally likely Yearbirder leaves the choice to you rather than guessing. A suggested species is shown in green when a code or the whole name matched exactly, and in amber when only part of the name matched or a typo was corrected — amber suggestions are the ones worth checking. If the correct sighting does not appear as an option, make sure that sighting is logged in eBird; you cannot associate a photo with a sighting that is not in your data..jsonl file); from then on it saves there automatically. Remember where you saved it — you will open it again the next time you use Yearbirder.Choose File → Open media catalog… and navigate to your saved catalog file. Yearbirder loads all photo associations and EXIF data. The Media Filter panel becomes active.
To avoid opening your media catalog manually every time, save its path as a preference (see Section 39 — Saving Preferences) so that Yearbirder opens it automatically at startup.
Changes to your photo associations are written to the media catalog automatically as you make them, so there is no separate save step. To keep a safety copy, choose File → Backup media catalog…, which writes a dated backup copy of your catalog without disturbing the working file.
Choose File → Close media catalog. This unloads all photo data from memory. The Media Filter panel becomes inactive.
With a media catalog already loaded, choose File → Add photos… to import additional photos. The new associations are merged into the existing catalog; save afterwards. After you select files, Yearbirder reports how many are already tracked and how many are new — so you can confirm you have selected the right files before any associations are created.
Choose File → Manage Photos… to open the Manage Photos window, where you can view and edit the details of individual photos that match the current filter — for example, to reassign a photo to a different species or correct a date.
If you have moved or re-exported your photo files, choose File → Refresh camera data from photos. Yearbirder re-reads the EXIF metadata from every file referenced in the catalog and updates its records. This is also useful after photo editing software writes new EXIF tags.
If photos or recordings have been moved or deleted from your hard drive, Yearbirder may show broken references. Use File → Compact catalog and cache… to scan for and remove any associations pointing to files that no longer exist.
The same command also clears unused images from Yearbirder's on-disk cache — the thumbnails and spectrograms it renders once and reuses so media appears instantly. Any cached image that no longer matches a file in the currently open catalog is deleted, reclaiming disk space left behind by media you have removed. Your original photo and recording files are never touched; only Yearbirder's preview images are affected, and any that are still needed are re-created automatically the next time you view that media.
Because the cache is shared across catalogs, running this command while one catalog is open will also clear cached images belonging to a different catalog. This is harmless — nothing is lost — but the other catalog's photos and recordings may take a moment to re-cache the first time you browse them after switching back to it.
The catalog stores one record per photo, including:
You can open the catalog file in a text editor or spreadsheet to inspect values, but be careful to preserve its structure.
Yearbirder can associate your personal bird photos with your eBird sightings. This unlocks several photo views and lets you filter by camera, lens, and exposure settings using the Media Filter panel on the right of the screen.
Open with Photos → Browse Cards. Shows every photo matching the current Sighting Filter and Media Filter as a vertical list of cards, one photo per row.
Each card shows a large thumbnail alongside the species name, scientific name, location, date, and your rating. Click any thumbnail to open the Enlargement view.
A Slideshow button appears in the top-right corner of the window. Click it to launch a full-screen slideshow of the photos currently shown — the same configuration dialog appears first, letting you choose sort order, speed, and title-bar options. See Slideshow for details.
Open with Photos → Browse Grid or the Photos toolbar button. This shows the same set of photos as Browse Cards — everything matching the current Sighting Filter and Media Filter — arranged as a grid of thumbnails rather than a single column of cards.
Browse Grid is the view to reach for when a filter returns a lot of photos. A result of a thousand or more images, or even the hundred-odd photos you might have of a single species, is far quicker to scan several across at a time than one per row. To narrow a large result before browsing it, set the Sighting Filter to a species, location, or date range, or use the Media Filter's rating range to show only your best images.
Each cell shows the thumbnail with the species name beneath it. Hover over a cell to see the full details — scientific name, location, capture date and time, and rating — in a tooltip. Click anywhere on a cell to open the Enlargement view for that photo; from there the arrow keys move through every photo in the grid, in the order the grid is currently sorted.
The window opens four columns wide. Widen or narrow it and the grid reflows to fit as many columns as the space allows, without reloading any thumbnails. Both browse views offer the same four sorting options and the same Slideshow button, and both stay in step with the rest of Yearbirder: deleting a photo, removing one from the catalog, or reassigning one to a different species updates the open window immediately.
The two views are independent windows, so you can keep a grid open for scanning and open a cards window alongside it when you want to read the full details of what you have found.
Use the radio buttons at the top of either browse window to sort by:
The Ascending and Descending buttons at the right of the banner reverse whichever order is chosen.
Use the Media Filter panel (right side of the main window) to narrow results by camera, lens, exposure settings, or rating. See Section 5 for the full list of filter options.
Click any thumbnail in either browse window to open the Enlargement view, which shows the photo at full size with pan and zoom. From the Enlargement view you can:
Open with Photos → Geolocated Photos. Available only when a media catalog is loaded.
Plots your geotagged photos on an interactive clustered marker map. Markers group together at lower zoom levels and spread apart as you zoom in. Hovering over a marker shows a thumbnail preview of the photo along with the species name, date, and location. Click a marker to open the Enlargement view for that photo. Multiple photos taken at exactly the same GPS coordinates are automatically fanned into a spiral so each remains individually clickable.
Open with Photos → Animated Photo Sequence Map. Available only when a media catalog is loaded.
Animates your geotagged photos in chronological order on an interactive map, showing where and when each photo was taken. Each photo appears as a callout bubble whose triangular tail points to the exact GPS location, so the underlying map detail remains visible. The bubble displays the photo thumbnail, species name, date, and location.
As the animation progresses, a small blue dot is permanently placed at each visited location, building up a breadcrumb trail of your photographic journey.
Playback is controlled by the bar at the bottom of the map:
The caption bar below the controls shows the species name, location, and date of the currently displayed photo. Click the photo bubble at any time to open the Enlargement view for that photo.
Open with Photos → Slideshow. Available only when a media catalog is loaded.
Displays your photos as a full-screen slideshow with smooth crossfade transitions between images. Before the slideshow begins, a dialog lets you configure it:
Press any key or move the mouse to exit the slideshow at any time. The cursor is hidden automatically while the slideshow is running.
Open with Photos → Year to Date by Photographs. Available only when a media catalog is loaded.
A horizontal bar chart comparing your year-to-date photo count against your full-year photo totals for every year in your data. The yellow segment shows photos taken up to today's date in each year; the muted amber extension shows photos taken after the same date. The current year's bar is highlighted.
Hover over a bar to see the year, YTD photo count, full-year total, and the species you most recently photographed. Click a bar to open a Photos window showing all photos from that year through today's date.
Open with Photos → Families & Orders by Photos. Available only when a media catalog is loaded.
A pie chart where each wedge represents a bird family (or order), sized by the total number of photos you have of species in that group under the current filter — not the number of species or individuals, but the literal photo count. Wedges are rendered in a yellow colour palette to distinguish this chart from the sighting-data pie charts.
Toggle between Families and Orders using the radio buttons. Hover over a wedge to see the group name, photo count, percentage of total, and the species you have photographed most within that group (ranked by photo count). Click a wedge to open a Photos window filtered to that family or order.
Open with Photos → Total Photos. Available only when a media catalog is loaded.
A yellow-themed bar chart showing your total photo count per time period. Use the four radio buttons at the top to switch between By Year, By Month, By Month-Year, and By Day views — the same granularity controls as the Total Species bar chart.
Hover over a bar to see the period label, total photo count, and the species you photographed most during that period (listed in descending photo-count order, with the count per species shown in parentheses). Click a bar to open a Photos window showing all photos from that time period.
Open with Photos → New Species Photographed Each Year. Available only when a media catalog is loaded.
A yellow-themed stacked bar chart showing how many species you added to your photographic collection each year. Each bar is split into two segments:
This chart answers questions such as: "How many new species did I photograph for the first time in 2023?" or "Has my rate of adding new species to my photo list been slowing down?"
Hover over a bar segment to see the year, the total species count, and a list of the new species first photographed in that year. Click a bar to open a Species Gallery for that year.
Open with Photos → Photographed Species Growth Over Time. Available only when a media catalog is loaded.
A yellow-themed line curve showing how your total number of photographed species has grown over time. The x-axis is date (using the date each species was first photographed) and the y-axis is the running cumulative total of species you have ever photographed under the current filter.
This is the photographic equivalent of the Species Growth Over Time graph — the final point tells you the total number of distinct species you have photographed.
Hover over the curve to see the date, cumulative total, and a tooltip that shows a photo thumbnail for each new species first photographed on that date (up to six thumbnails, stacked vertically; the thumbnail is the highest-rated photo of that species taken on that day). Click a point to open a Species Gallery showing only the species first photographed on that date, filtered to photos taken on that day.
The Enlargement view opens whenever you click a photo thumbnail anywhere in Yearbirder — in Browse Cards or Browse Grid, the Species Gallery, the Individual Species window, the Geolocated Photos map, or the Animated Photo Sequence Map. It shows your photo at full resolution against a dark background and doubles as a photo management tool: you can navigate your collection, rate images, inspect EXIF data, and perform file operations all without leaving the view.
Use the left and right arrow keys (or Page Up / Page Down) to step through the photos in your current set. The Space bar advances to the next photo; Backspace goes back. You can also right-click and choose Next photo or Previous photo from the context menu.
Scroll the mouse wheel up to zoom in and down to zoom out. Once zoomed in, click and drag to pan around the photo. Press F (or right-click → Fit to window) at any time to snap the photo back to fit the window.
Press F10 (or right-click → Full screen) to expand the Enlargement view to fill the entire screen, hiding the Yearbirder interface. Arrow keys still navigate between photos in full-screen mode, and you can still zoom and pan. Press F10 again or Esc to return to the windowed view.
Press F9 (or right-click → Show details) to open the details pane along the side of the Enlargement view. The pane shows:
Press F9 again to close the pane and reclaim the screen area for the photo.
Beneath the file name in the details pane is a Notes field, showing up to four lines of any note you have attached to the photo (with an ellipsis if it runs longer), or "Click to add notes…" if there isn't one yet. Click the field — whether it is empty or already has text — to open a small text box where you can type or edit a free-text note. Click OK to save it immediately to your media catalog, or Cancel to discard your edit. Notes have no fixed format — use them for anything you want to remember about the shot: behavior observed, a plumage detail, a reminder to look again at full resolution, and so on.
You can assign a 1–5 star rating from the Enlargement view in three ways:
Press F7 (or right-click → Hide cursor) to make the cursor invisible, giving you a clean view of the photo without anything obscuring the detail you are trying to evaluate. Press F7 again (or right-click → Show cursor) to restore it.
If you notice while browsing that a photo is attached to the wrong species, or to the wrong location or date, right-click it and choose Edit species or location assignment…. A Manage Photos window opens showing just that one photo, with the same drop-downs you would use when adding photos, so you can correct the assignment and save without searching for the photo among everything else in your catalog.
The command is unavailable while a Manage Photos or Rename Media window is already open, since two windows editing the same catalog can conflict; close the other window first. If the photo is being viewed full screen, Yearbirder leaves full screen before opening the window.
Right-click on the photo to access two file-management actions:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ← / → (or Page Up / Page Down) | Previous / next photo |
| Space / Backspace | Next / previous photo |
| Scroll wheel up / down | Zoom in / out |
| Click and drag | Pan when zoomed in |
| F | Fit photo to window |
| F7 | Toggle cursor visibility |
| F9 | Toggle details pane |
| F10 | Toggle full-screen mode |
| Esc | Exit full-screen mode |
| 1 – 5 | Rate photo (1–5 stars) |
| 0 | Clear rating |
Ratings are a 1–5 scale (or 0 for unrated) that you assign to each photo. They are stored in your media catalog and can be used to filter photos in any Yearbirder photo view using the Rating Range control in the Media Filter, and to sort photos by quality in the Photos gallery. You can assign or change a rating in any of the following ways:
When you add photos via File → Add photos…, the confirmation dialog for each photo includes a rating field. You can assign an initial rating before the photo is saved to your catalog — useful for flagging your best shots immediately after a field outing.
Choose File → Manage Photos… to open the Manage Photos window. It shows all photos matching the current filter, one per row, and lets you set or change the rating for each photo individually. Use the Sighting Filter to narrow the list to a specific species, date range, or location before opening it.
Right-click on a photo while viewing it in the Enlargement view and choose Rate 1 star through Rate 5 stars from the context menu. The rating is applied immediately and the details pane updates to reflect the change.
While viewing a photo in the Enlargement view, press 1 through 5 to assign the corresponding rating without using the mouse. Press 0 to clear the rating. These shortcuts work whether the details pane is visible or not.
If the details pane is visible (toggle with F9), five star buttons appear at the bottom of the pane. Click any star to assign that rating. Clicking the 1-star button a second time clears the rating back to unrated.
Choose File → Manage Photos… to open the Manage Photos window. It shows every photo matching the current Sighting Filter — one photo per row — with a large thumbnail on the left and a set of dropdown controls on the right. Use these controls to reassign a photo to a different checklist, correct a mis-identified species, or change its rating.
Each photo row has five dropdowns that identify exactly which eBird checklist sighting the photo is attached to:
Each row also has a Notes button, next to Reset. Click it to open a small text box and attach a free-text note to the photo — the same note field shown in the Enlargement view's details pane (see Section 22).
Any dropdown that differs from the photo's current saved value is highlighted. Click the Reset button on a row to revert all of that photo's dropdowns — including its note — to their original values.
Click OK to apply and save all changes across every photo shown in the window. Changes are written immediately to your media catalog. Click Cancel to close the window without saving.
Open with Photos → Species Gallery. Available once a media catalog is loaded.
The Species Gallery displays one representative photo for each species in your collection — the highest-rated photo you have for that species. Photos are arranged in a responsive grid and sorted in taxonomic order, making it a visual life list of every species you have photographed.
The number of columns adjusts automatically as you resize or maximise the window, so the grid always makes full use of the available space.
Each tile shows:
Hovering over a tile highlights it. Click a tile to open a Photos window showing all of your photos of that species (subject to the current filter).
The window title and subtitle show how many species have at least one photo under the current filter. Like all Yearbirder windows, the Species Gallery responds to the Sighting Filter — for example, set a location filter to see a gallery of every species you have photographed at a particular site.
Two buttons appear in the top-right corner of the Species Gallery header:
In addition to photos, Yearbirder can associate your personal bird sound recordings with your eBird sightings. Recordings are stored in the same media catalog as your photos (see Section 20) — there is no separate file to manage. Once a recording is associated, Yearbirder can show you every recording you have made of a species, play it back, and display it as a spectrogram.
Recordings must be in WAV format (mono or stereo). As with photos, Yearbirder stores a reference to each file's location on your computer, not a copy — your original recordings stay where they are.
After you select files, Yearbirder reports how many of them are already in your catalog and how many are new, so you can confirm your selection before any associations are created.
To review or edit the details of recordings already in your catalog, open the Manage Recordings window — see Section 29 — Managing Your Recordings.
Most recorders write their own name into the file, so Yearbirder can tell a Zoom F3 recording from one made on a phone without being told. No recorder writes down which microphone you used — that information exists nowhere but in your memory. A rig is how you supply it: a recording device paired with a microphone, given a name you choose.
Set your rigs up in Preferences → Recording Gear. Each one needs all three of a name, a recording device, and a microphone. List a separate rig for every microphone you use with a given device — several rigs may share the same recorder:
When you add recordings, each card carries a rig picker offering the rigs that match whatever device the file named, with your other rigs below. If exactly one rig uses that device, its microphone is filled in for you. If several do, Yearbirder fills in nothing and waits for you to choose — with no evidence for which microphone was on the recorder, a confident guess would simply be wrong most of the time.
Choosing a rig sets both the recording device and the microphone, so it also corrects a file that names its device wrongly. That happens more than you would expect: some recording apps write the microphone into the field meant for the recorder, and a microphone that was not fully seated still gets named in the file as though it had been used. Yearbirder never modifies your audio files — only its own catalog — and choosing Use each file's original metadata restores both fields at any time. A device you have changed is shown in plain text rather than green, so you can see which recordings no longer agree with their files.
A recording session is usually one outing with one rig, so the Add Recordings and Manage Recordings windows offer a batch bar. Click Show batch options at the top right, pick a rig, and Apply assigns it to every card in the window; the button names the number of cards it will affect. Your choice to show or hide the bar is remembered.
This is also how you label recordings you added before setting up rigs. Narrow the Media Filter to the recordings you want — by Recording Device, by Microphone → Unknown for anything not yet assigned, and by date for the period you used a particular microphone — then open Recordings → Manage recordings and apply the rig to the whole set at once.
Your recordings can be browsed two ways, and both show every recording matching the current Sighting Filter and Media Filter. The Recordings menu appears whenever an eBird data file is open.
Open with Recordings → Browse Cards. Shows one recording per row, with the full details alongside it.
Each row displays:
Open with Recordings → Browse Grid or the Recordings toolbar button. The same recordings as Browse Cards, arranged as a grid of spectrograms rather than a single column — quicker to scan when a filter returns a lot of them, and the view to reach for when you are hunting for one particular cut among many.
Every cell keeps its own Play / Pause button and scrubber, so you can audition a recording without leaving the grid, and the red cursor line sweeps across the cell's spectrogram exactly as it does on a card. Only one recording plays at a time: pressing Play on a second cell stops the first and resets its scrubber.
The species name appears beneath each spectrogram, with the full details — scientific name, location, capture date and time, and rating — shown on hover. Click a spectrogram to open the Recording Enlargement view for that recording.
The window opens three columns wide. Widen or narrow it and the grid reflows to fit as many columns as the space allows, without re-rendering any spectrograms. Both views offer the same four sorting options, and both update immediately when a recording is deleted, removed from the catalog, or reassigned to a different species.
Click Play to listen to a recording. A red cursor line sweeps across the spectrogram in real time to show your position, and the scrubber tracks along with it. Drag the scrubber to jump to any point in the recording. Click Pause to stop; clicking Play on a different recording switches to it.
Yearbirder plays WAV recordings across the full range of bit depths a field recordist is likely to use — 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit integer, as well as 32-bit float (the format used by recorders such as the Zoom F3). It also handles a wide span of sample rates, from low rates up through high-resolution 96 kHz and 192 kHz. Each recording is decoded at its full resolution, so the fine detail and wide dynamic range of high-bit-depth files are preserved.
You don't need to configure anything for playback to sound right. Yearbirder automatically conforms to your computer's current audio output settings: it plays in high-quality 32-bit float when your sound device supports it, and at the sample rate your device is currently set to. When a recording's sample rate differs from your device's — for example, playing a 96 kHz recording while your output is set to 48 kHz — Yearbirder converts it on the fly using a high-quality resampler, so it always plays at the correct pitch and speed. If you switch output devices or change your device's audio settings while Yearbirder is running, playback adjusts to the new settings automatically.
Click any spectrogram to open the Recording Enlargement view (see Section 28), where you can zoom, adjust the frequency range and contrast, and examine the sound in detail.
Use the radio buttons at the top of the window to sort by:
The Ascending and Descending buttons at the right of the banner reverse whichever order is chosen.
Use the Recordings section of the Media Filter panel (right side of the main window) to narrow results by rating, channels (Mono / Stereo), duration, or whether a species has a recording at all. See Section 5.
Click a spectrogram in the Browse Recordings window to open the Recording Enlargement view — a full-featured workspace for studying a single recording. It shows a large spectrogram of the current time window, with a compact overview strip beneath it that maps the whole recording and indicates which part you are viewing.
Use the Play / Pause button to listen. A red cursor line tracks your position smoothly across the spectrogram, and when you are zoomed in the view scrolls to keep the cursor in sight. The Back to Start button returns the cursor to the beginning. When playback reaches the end, the cursor stays at the end of the recording rather than jumping back, so you can inspect the final moments.
Move the mouse over the spectrogram to see a small read-out of the exact time and frequency (kHz) under the pointer. The pointer becomes a crosshair for precise positioning; click anywhere on the spectrogram to seek to that point, or drag with the mouse button held to pan the view.
Three sliders let you adjust the view continuously and instantly — there is no waiting for the image to redraw:
Click the Fit Hz button to automatically set the frequency range to the band where the recording's energy is concentrated — a quick way to frame the bird's call. The button changes to Restore; click it again to return to the full frequency range.
Press F10 (or use the right-click menu) to view the spectrogram full-screen. You can move between recordings without leaving the window, so you can compare several recordings of the same species in turn.
Press F9 to open the details pane, showing the species name, recording metadata (location, date, duration, sample rate, bit depth, channels, and recording device), the file name, and a Notes field beneath it. The Notes field shows up to four lines of any note attached to the recording (with an ellipsis if it runs longer), or "Click to add notes…" if there isn't one yet. Click the field to open a small text box, type your note, and click OK to save it immediately to your media catalog.
Choose File → Manage recordings… to open the Manage Recordings window. It shows every recording matching the current Sighting Filter — one recording per row — with its spectrogram on the left and a set of controls on the right. Use these controls to reassign a recording to a different checklist, correct a mis-identified species, or change its rating. You can play each recording back while you work, using the Play button beneath its spectrogram.
Each recording row has controls that identify exactly which eBird checklist sighting the recording is attached to:
Each row also has a Notes button, next to Reset. Click it to open a small text box and attach a free-text note to the recording — the same note field shown in the Recording Enlargement view's details pane (see Section 28).
Any control that differs from the recording's current saved value is highlighted. Click the Reset button on a row to revert that recording's controls — including its note — to their original values.
Click OK to apply and save all changes across every recording shown in the window. Changes are written immediately to your media catalog. Click Cancel to close without saving. When you save, Yearbirder quietly updates its cached spectrograms for any new or changed recordings in the background, so they appear instantly the next time you browse them.
The Recordings menu provides a set of charts and reports that mirror the photo reports, but count your sound recordings instead of photos. They appear once a media catalog is open, and are rendered in a green colour palette to distinguish them from the yellow photo charts. Each respects the current Sighting Filter and Media Filter.
As with the photo charts, hovering over a bar, wedge, or point shows details, and clicking opens a filtered window or gallery for that selection.
Open with Community → Notable Community Sightings (Past 3 days).
This report queries the eBird API for species that have been flagged as notable in your selected region over the past three days — birds that are rare, unusual, or otherwise out of the ordinary for that area and time of year. The list is drawn from the broader eBird community, not just your own data.
Species are listed in taxonomic order. Each row shows the species common and scientific name, along with colour-coded badge bubbles and a report count on the right. Hybrid species are shown in grey without badges.
The badge bubbles indicate firsts relative to your own eBird data:
Species with a parenthetical race or form (e.g., "Barn Swallow (American)") are compared against the base species name, so the badge correctly reflects whether you have seen the species in any form.
Click the + button to the left of any species name to expand its row and see all the individual checklists on which that species was reported. Each checklist row shows the location, date and time, count, and observer name. Click View ↗ to open that checklist on the eBird website. Duplicate sightings (same location, time, and observer) are automatically removed.
Click any blue species common name to open an Individual Species window for that species, showing your full sighting history, location and year breakdowns, monthly patterns, and photo thumbnails. If the species is not in your own data, clicking it does nothing. Hybrid species names are shown in grey and are not clickable.
When the report contains species with one or more badges, a row of filter buttons appears above the list. Click a button to show only species that match that badge type — for example, clicking Year hides everything except species you have not yet recorded this year. Click All to show every species again.
Sighting data is provided by eBird.org. An internet connection is required each time the report is opened.
Open with Community → All Community Sightings (Past 3 days).
This report shows every species reported anywhere in your selected region over the past three days, drawing from all eBird observers. Unlike the Notable Sightings report, it is not filtered for rarity — it is a broad snapshot of what has been seen recently.
Species are listed in taxonomic order. Each row shows the most recent sighting of that species — location, date and time, count, and observer — along with the same colour-coded Life/State/County/Year badge bubbles as the Notable Sightings report. Hybrid species are shown in grey without badges.
Click View ↗ on any row to open that checklist on the eBird website.
Each species row includes an All Locations ↗ button on the right. Clicking it opens a new child window listing every recent sighting of that species across the region — all locations, dates, and observers — so you can see the full picture of where the bird has been found.
When a specific eBird Location is selected in the Sighting Filter, the report shows two additional buttons in the header:
These buttons are shown even when no checklists have been submitted in the past three days, so you can always access the taxonomy and map for a location you are interested in.
Click any blue species common name to open an Individual Species window for that species. If the species is not in your own data, clicking it does nothing. Hybrid species names are shown in grey and are not clickable.
The same filter bar as the Notable Sightings report appears above the list when badge types are present. Click a badge button to narrow the list to species matching that first type; click All to restore the full list.
Sighting data is provided by eBird.org. An internet connection is required each time the report is opened.
Open with Community → Community Sightings Explorer…
The Community Sightings Explorer lets you browse Notable and All Community Sightings for any region in the world, regardless of your current Sighting Filter. It is useful when you want to check what has been seen in a region you have not set as your active filter — for example, a county you are planning to visit, or a country you are birding on a trip.
Use the three cascading drop-downs to choose your region:
A note at the top of the window reminds you that reports from here use the selected region, not the Sighting Filter.
Once a country (and optionally a state/province and county) is selected, click one of the four buttons to open the corresponding report for that region as a new child window:
All three reports work exactly as described in the preceding sections — including badge bubbles, filter buttons, expandable checklists, and clickable species names.
Country and county lists require an internet connection. State/province lists are loaded from a bundled reference file and are available offline.
Open with Community → Hotspot Map, or click Hotspot Map in the Community Sightings Explorer.
The Hotspot Map displays all public eBird hotspots in the selected region as bubble markers on an interactive map, with each bubble's size proportional to the total number of checklists submitted at that hotspot. This gives an immediate visual sense of which hotspots in the region are most active and heavily birded.
Hover over any bubble to see the hotspot name and checklist count. The map is fully zoomable and pannable. Hotspots with more checklists appear as larger bubbles, making the most productive birding sites immediately obvious.
Hotspot data is provided by eBird.org. An internet connection is required each time the map is opened.
Open with File → Rename media files…. Available once a media catalog is loaded.
Rename Media lets you batch-rename your photo and recording files on disk using a structured name you compose from up to four named parts. The new names are built from the data Yearbirder already knows about each file — its species, date, time, and location — so the resulting filenames are descriptive and consistently formatted. After renaming, Yearbirder automatically updates all references in your media catalog.
Photos and recordings appear together in one table — each photo and each WAV recording becomes a row — so you can rename both media types in a single pass. The WAV and JPG buttons (alongside Select All and Select None) let you quickly check just your recordings or just your photos. For recordings, the species, date, time, and location come from the sighting they are attached to in your catalog rather than from embedded file metadata.
Renaming is permanent and cannot be undone. Back up your photos and recordings before proceeding.
The top section of the window lets you build the filename template from four parts — Part 1 through Part 4 — joined by underscores. Each part is a single drop-down that lists every available piece of information together with its format, so there is just one choice to make per part. Set any part to (omit) to leave it out.
| Part option | What it produces |
|---|---|
| (omit) | This part is skipped |
| Date: YYYY-MM-DD | Date with dashes, e.g. 2024-05-14 |
| Date: YYYYMMDD | Date with no separators, e.g. 20240514 |
| Time: HH-MM-SS | Time to the second, e.g. 07-23-45 |
| Time: HH-MM-SSt | Time to the second plus a tenths digit, e.g. 07-23-453 |
| Time: HHMMSS / HHMMSSt | The same two time options with no separators |
| Species: Common Name | The species' common name, e.g. BaltimoreOriole |
| Species: Scientific Name | The scientific name, e.g. Icterus_galbula |
| Species: 4-digit Code | The short eBird alpha code, e.g. baor for Baltimore Oriole. Requires an eBird taxonomy file to be loaded at startup. |
| Location | The eBird location name associated with the sighting |
The default is Date: YYYY-MM-DD → Time: HH-MM-SS → Species: Common Name → Location, producing filenames like 2024-05-14_07-23-45_Black-throatedBlueWarbler_CentralPark.jpg.
Date and time are taken from the file's own metadata (EXIF for photos, embedded metadata for recordings). When a file has no embedded date or time, Yearbirder automatically falls back to the date and start time of the eBird checklist the file is attached to — so a name part is filled in whenever possible.
A Sample line below the parts shows a live preview of what the first file's new name would look like as you adjust your choices.
When two or more files would end up with the same proposed name, Yearbirder differentiates them automatically — you don't have to configure anything:
…_07-23-452 and …_07-23-457). This keeps the names meaningful and in true chronological order._1, _2, and so on — zero-padded when needed so they sort correctly.The Status column (below) shows which files are receiving a suffix, so you always see how a clash is being resolved before you commit.
The table shows one row per photo or recording file matching the current filter. Each row has:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| (checkbox) | Check to include this photo in the rename; uncheck to skip it |
| Current Filename | The file's existing name on disk |
| Proposed Filename | The name Yearbirder will assign based on your format settings |
| Status | Readiness indicator (see below) |
Hover over a photo row to see a thumbnail preview of that photo. (Recording rows do not show a preview.)
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Ready | The proposed name is valid and the rename will proceed |
| No Change | The proposed name is identical to the current name; nothing will happen |
| Duplicate: Append _N | Multiple files would share the same proposed name and tenths of a second could not differentiate them, so Yearbirder appends a numeric suffix (_1, _2, etc.) to each (see How duplicate names are differentiated above) |
| Name in use | A different file already exists at the proposed path; this file will be skipped |
| No Name | All parts are set to (omit), so no name can be generated |
Use Select All and Select None to quickly check or uncheck every row. The count label shows how many photos are currently selected. When you are satisfied with the proposed names, click Rename. A confirmation dialog shows how many files will be renamed before any changes are made. After renaming, the Status column updates to Done for each successful file, or shows an error message (such as Permission denied or Name already in use) for any file that could not be renamed.
To make your photos and recordings appear quickly, Yearbirder keeps a cache of the thumbnails it shows in the photo browsers — one sized for Browse Cards and a smaller one for Browse Grid — and the spectrograms it shows in the Recordings browser and the Recording Enlargement view. This cache is built automatically: items are added to it when you first import them, and refreshed automatically if a file changes. You normally never need to think about it.
Occasionally you may want to rebuild the cache from scratch — for example, if you edited a photo with software that kept the original file's date and size unchanged, or if you simply want to be certain every cached image is current. Choose File → Rebuild thumbnail cache….
Yearbirder asks you to confirm, then clears the existing cache and regenerates both thumbnail sizes for every photo and a spectrogram for every recording in your media catalog. A progress bar shows how far along it is. The work runs in the background, so the rest of Yearbirder stays responsive, and you can keep working while it finishes.
This command is purely a convenience for refreshing the cache. It does not change, move, or delete any of your original photo or recording files, and it does not alter your media catalog — it only rebuilds the cached preview images Yearbirder draws from.
Click Print on the toolbar or choose File → Print. The currently active window is sent to the printer. Most list and report windows print sensibly; map and photo windows print a screenshot of the current view.
Click Create PDF on the toolbar or choose File → Create PDF. Yearbirder exports the active window to a PDF file. A file save dialog lets you choose the destination. This is the recommended way to save or share a specific view of your data.
Yearbirder allows many windows to be open at the same time. For example, open a Species List filtered to one location, then open a second Species List filtered to a different location, and use Windows → Tile Windows to view them side by side.
Set the seasonal range filter to a narrow window (for example, May 1–May 15) and open the Date Totals report. You will see how your spring migration counts vary from year to year across those same two weeks.
Open Date Totals with no filters set and sort the Date Totals table by Species (descending). Your highest single-day species count rises to the top.
Set the Family filter to a family you are interested in (e.g., Shorebirds), then open the US States Choropleth. The shading immediately shows which states you have recorded shorebirds in.
The Name Search field accepts a partial name and filters the Species List in real time. This is the fastest way to find a species when you are not sure of its exact name — type "thrush" and all thrushes appear regardless of which family they belong to.
Two prefixes switch which name is searched. s: searches scientific names, so s:Buteo finds every buteo hawk. b: searches the four-letter banding codes, so b:OSFL finds the Olive-sided Flycatcher — handy if you already think in banding codes. Both accept partial text: b:OS matches every code beginning or containing "OS". Species with no banding code on file are never returned by a b: search.
Click Yearbirder → Preferences on the menu bar to set your preferences. Settings are organized across five tabs:
Save your home county and regular birding location ("patch") so you can jump to them instantly from the Sighting Filter.
An eBird data file must be open to configure these settings. To clear a saved value, open Preferences, select the blank entry at the top of the relevant list, and click OK.
Define the rigs you record with — each a recording device paired with a microphone, under a name you choose. Your audio files record the device but never the microphone, so rigs are how that information reaches your catalog. Use Add Rig and Remove Rig to edit the list; every rig needs all three of a name, a recording device, and a microphone, and each name must be unique. List a separate rig for each microphone you pair with a given device. See Section 26 — Recording gear for how rigs are assigned to recordings.
Bluetooth headphones and some audio interfaces add playback latency that Yearbirder has no way to measure on its own — the sound reaches your ears later than Yearbirder thinks it does, so the red cursor in a recording's spectrogram appears to run ahead of what you hear. This tab lets you correct for that, separately for each audio output device, with a short tick-and-flash test.
Wired speakers and headphones usually need an offset at or near 0 ms; Bluetooth devices typically need somewhere in the range of 150–500 ms. Every device you have calibrated appears in a table beneath the test controls, showing its saved offset (editable directly in the table) and a Remove button to delete that device's calibration. Once saved, a device's offset is applied automatically, in every Recording Enlargement window, whenever you play a recording through that device.