Description:
The Peck Bird Information Manager integrates photographs, recordings, etymology, checklists, identification tips and species assessment data into four visually simple but highly integrated lists.
Features:
The AOU list, defined by the AOU (American Ornithologists’ Union), lists species within a hierarchical classification.
Since the AOU list is rather lengthy (2232 items in its hierarchy), you may find it convenient to localize it to the checklist from your state's bird records committee.
Presently Peck includes checklists for AR, AZ, CA, GA, IL, IN, MD, MI, NC, NY, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, and WV.
The document list displays the names of documented species (approximately the list of species that breed in North America).
The audio list displays the names of species or mnemonics (if available) of calls or songs.
The bird conservation region list displays the 37 bird conservation regions, as defined by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, covering the continental United States.
There are two components to the Peck Bird Information Manager:
the Peck application - this freeware assists with searching through the bird reference information and the multimedia content, which is not required by the Peck application but without the multimedia content only the AOU list, identification tips, and life history descriptions will be available.
the Peck multimedia content - a compilation of recordings, photographs, and etymology. The multimedia content comes in a Public Domain and a proprietary version. The Public Domain multimedia content is free and includes about 400 photographs and 180 recordings. The proprietary multimedia content is stored on an SD card, is not free, but has about twice the number of photographs, three times the number of recordings, and the etymology for the names of 736 species.
Update Description:
v7.8.2:
- Fixed Peck application's global find procedure (was causing global find fatal error when Text Search Option was set to search the AOU list)
Reviews:
**** [Jan 29, 2007] by Bill
Wow. Just wow. That's the best word to describe this. This is the application birders have been looking for. The only reason I gave it four stars and not five is that the documentation is a little hazy, and the application is pretty complex. But you simply can't beat this.