The ABA presents Listing Central!
by Nate Swick
In the last couple years, the ABA has been making changes in the way we present our traditional offerings, the annual Big Day & List Report among them. Today we’re really excited to announce Listing Central, which will continue the legacy of the Big Day & List Report as well as hugely expanding its capabilities and capacity.
Everything that you’ve come to expect from the Big Day & List Report in the past, from Big Day narratives to rankings for every region in which ABA members have historically kept lists, is still available - you can even print them out if you prefer to read them offline. But Listing Central is so so much more, and it’s these new offerings that we’re most excited to share with ABA birders.
First, the thresholds are gone. Haven’t cracked 500 in the ABA-Area yet? Or turned up the minimum in your state or province? Doesn’t matter, we want your numbers anyway.
Second, in addition to all the traditional categories the ABA has always kept track of, you can now enter your numbers for every single county in every American state and every Canadian province. County listing is big and growing, and we want to be there to help you keep track of it all.
For Big Day birders, we also added the ability to define your own big day areas, so go ahead and submit big days for your state, region, city park ... however you choose to define your big day.
And last, you’ll be able to edit your numbers ANY TIME YOU LIKE, and the system is designed to make that as easy as possible to do so. No more waiting for the annual report. If you finished your Big Year and want to know how to stacked up, that information should be right at your fingertips.
Getting started is easy. We need to confirm who you are, and then you can choose a username and password. The user name isn’t displayed anywhere. It’s just the name you log in with. You can choose to use the same username and password as you may have for membership renewals, or member-only content.
Once that’s set, you simply log in, and start entering you list totals. Each member has a profile page, with all of the list totals they’ve submitted in one place. Think of it like the back of a baseball card.
There are simple instructions on the page to help you get started. Once you’ve entered your numbers, check out the Listing Blog and Forum. Lot’s of good discussion and a great place to get help finding target birds, discuss the latest checklist changes ... or whatever is on your mind.
We’re really excited about this new initiative, and we hope you are too. Listing has been described as the roots, the core, of the ABA. And maybe it still is, even though the organization itself is much more. Mostly we just like to think of it as a way people enjoy birds, and more than anything, that’s what we want to help you do.
We realize this is a big change, and we want to make this transition as easy as possible for birders interested in sharing their numbers. If you have any questions, comments, or critiques, our Listing Central moderator, Greg Neise, is available at listing AT aba.org to hear and help. You can also call our offices at (800) 850-2473 or (719) 578-9703.
So come check out the new Listing Central. And keep us posted on your latest tick.
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