This is more or less what I've done on a couple of recent trips. When I
went to New Caledonia last January, I didn't have time to order a field
guide (nor could I find a decent one in the bookstores I visited over
there).
So I made my own! It was easy to find images of all the expected species
thanks to (a) some excellent online trip reports, many with photos, and
(b) a few specialised sites, including ABID, plus an excellent one for the
flora and fauna of New Caledonia. Finding calls was a little harder, but I
got most of them thanks to the NC site mentioned, plus a few other sites
that cover birds in neighbouring areas like Vanuata.
I actually made two "field guides" - one on an iPod Touch (superb screen,
ability to zoom in, but no speakers) and the other on a Nokia N70 mobile
phone (poor quality for viewing images, but I could playback through
speakers). I couldn't find a call or clear photo for one of the main
target species, Large Lifou White-Eye, and you guessed it, I dipped on
this. Having the calls available in the field, and on flights to do my
homework, as well as good clear images for most species, made it
unnecessary to have a printed field guide, although I woudl have grabbed
one had I found any. Oh - as well as having images and audio, of course I
had text, mostly in the form of PDF files made from web page screenshots -
more trip reports and birding sites.
Was this a breach of copyright? In some cases, possibly. Where sites had
a Creative Commons Licence, then I was entitled to copy the images, audio
and data for my own use as long as I didn't share it. If I'd used this
info for profit, or even for showing to other birders, or for guiding,
then I'd say that I would be well outside the "fair use" allowances of
Australian Copyright law. Of course, some of the sites were located in
other jurisdictions, so that complicates it even more.
That said, it's a fairly easy way to get a targeted field guide for an
area you're visiting.
It took me a few days to put together my NC guide, and only a few hours to
get a similar one together for a recent trip to Cairins - but for this I
already had a commercial CD containing most of the calls.
Russell Woodford
On Wed, July 16, 2008 8:24 pm, Peter Shute wrote:
> Forgot about those. A problem is that a huge amount of scanning, cropping
> and renaming of files would be involved, to the extent that I think it
> would be impractical for one person to do it for themself without being
> paid - they'd spend all their time creating it, rather than using it.
>
> But because they'd be using other people's work, it would of course be
> illegal to sell it or even pass on to others for free. So it's up to the
> publishers to create things like this. I believe such things are
> available for US birds.
>
> Peter Shute
>
> Stephen Ambrose wrote on Wednesday, 16 July 2008 10:33 AM:
>
>> Peter Shute suggested:
>> "Better still might be to somehow get the whole lot onto a phone or
>> pda."
>>
>> Or perhaps a PMP (portable media player, eg. iPOD). A PMP
>> could play bird calls or display short videos of birds, as
>> well as the usual still images and text, to aid in ID.
>>
>> I don't have the technological expertise to know if this is
>> feasible, but I thought I'd put it out there as a suggestion.
>>
>> Stephen Ambrose
>> Ryde, NSW
>
>
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Russell Woodford
Learning Technologies Coordinator
Sacred Heart College Geelong
http://web.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/music/auralonline.html
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