This dialog can be used to simply enter a comment (or nothing), or to enter a quantity, sighting Attributes, and/or Key Words. The comment can hold up to 80 characters. (With Field Notes you can write up to 7,000 characters of information.)
The comment shown above has “Attributes” entered along with the text. The Attributes /i/p make the comment read “12 immatures, photographed, sitting in the bird bath.” (That 80 character comment is a lot more powerful than it looks.)
Also, Judy is not really a birder, but I like to keep track of what she’s seen. So I put her name in the comment when she has seen the bird, too. That way, I can print her Life List any time I want, using “Judy” as a Key Word argument. In fact, I could list the immature birds Judy has seen.
Clicking the " (Ditto) button, or Pressing Ctrl-P, places the entire comment from the prior record in the current one. Ctrl-” does the same thing. You can also use the standard Windows Ctrl-C (Copy) and Ctrl-V (Paste) commands to move text via the clipboard. In Fixing, you can see how part or all of a comment can be automatically carried over into subsequent records (as well as repeating the Place and Date).
The quantity can be as large as 65,534. With no quantity recorded, the sighting is treated as a quantity of 1. The quantity field is used by the Census spreadsheet reports, particularly useful if you are active in a Christmas Bird Count, Breeding Bird Survey, Feeder Watch, or doing ornithology studies. The quantity is also exported as a numeric field if you export records to other programs, such as Excel or dBASE. You can either type the quantity, or “spin” it in.
When entering a comment, if you click the SS button, a list of the subspecies for the current species is displayed, Select one to have it placed in the comment.
You need do nothing special when recording “lifers.” AviSys knows how to keep track of that kind of stuff. However, if you record the same life bird more than once on the same day, AviSys has no way to know which of those sightings was the “real” life sighting record—we don’t record the time of day. In that case, if you want to be sure AviSys always presents the “correct” life records when you ask to see them, or when you ask “Which of the birds on that trip to Texas last week were lifers?” enter a /? Attribute into the records of the same life bird that were not the “real” life records. Remember this is necessary only when you record the same life bird more than once on the same day, and is not necessary at all if you don’t care about “exact” life records. If you use this strategy, you'll want to add /? to your Attributes Table.
If you want to duplicate the comment in each successive record, without having to take any action, click Comment in the Fix box on the right side of the main screen after the first record has been entered. If you want to duplicate just part of the comment, place a semi-colon at the end of the portion you want duplicated. After a Fix, the first portion of the comment will be inserted in the comments of subsequent records, and the comment dialog will be presented for each record for you to enter any additional comments.