Wings

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on February 27, 2009

This application is a specialized database designed for storing bird sighting records, but you'll need some serious time on your hands to familiarize yourself with it. Wings has a large, utilitarian interface teeming with tools, checklists, reports, and options. The program's large database lets you create detailed records of bird sightings along with pertinent information such as the species name, sighting locale, and images you can add. It uses Dr. James Clements' book titled, Birds of the World: A Checklist to classify entries according to specifics such as kingdom, phylum, class, and species. The program organizes all of the entered data to generate multiple tables, charts, and reports. Fortunately, for first-time users, Wings has a navigation panel that acts as a stand-in for a help file, plus it downloads with a tutorial in Adobe Acrobat Reader. This intricate program requires a whopping 24 MBs of space and an annual fee, but ornithologists and everyday bird lovers will appreciate its precise details.

Publisher's Description

From Wings:

Wings is a cross-platform relational database that manages bird records. It runs on Apple's Macintosh OS X and on Microsoft's Windows XP and Windows 2000. Wings can manage pretty much most kinds of biological record keeping it was simply designed with birds in mind. So what can Wings do? It can do the usual things store sightings data and the supporting taxonomic, location, observer and source data perform data entry one record at a time pManage millions of records search and sort manage multiple checklists import and export create columnar reports. 30 day trial, followed by a $25.00 annual fee.