One of the greatest advantages of an online publication is that it can be updated on a regular basis, daily even.  Much more importantly, we can extend the scope of a printed page by adding media files onto each page.

We have included photographs on some pages but there are still many birds we do not have photographs for.  We plan to add sound files of bird calls too (hear Oriental Magpie Robin's with the compliments of Sutari), but there are many birds whose calls and songs remain unrecorded.  In the longer term, we would also like to add video files.  These are all areas where visitors to the site can make a positive contribution.  In short, this book can be as good and as dynamic as you want it to be.

Every contribution will be fully acknowledged and posted alongside the photograph or sound file used. Needless to say, the copyright will remain the property of the contributor at all times.  As for information used in text form, in keeping with normal procedure, the contributor will be cited as the source.

Listed below are some of the ways in which you can contribute.

1.      Distribution maps

Currently, we have a pretty good idea about the birds than can be found in Singapore.  What we do not know is exactly where they can be found, how well spread out they are over the whole island.

Quite apart from regularly updating individual species accounts, a major objective of this book will be to define, as clearly as we can, where any particular species can be found, by making a distributional map for every bird on the Singapore list. We are on a steep learning curve here and, to determine the final format for these maps, we would like some input from you.

An example of this, Map 1, for the White-bellied Sea Eagle Haliaeetus leucogaster, shows what the end-product could look like. The data for this map, extracted from Singapore Avifauna (SINAV) Vols. 22 to 24, marks all the locations at which this bird has been recorded in Singapore between 2008 and early 2010. Some of these location markers may well be incorrectly placed since we do not know exactly where the bird was sighted. For instance, if the sighting report simply says "Tuas", since we will not exactly which part of Tuas the bird was seen at, placing a there-or-thereabouts marker might well end up in the wrong place.

• The map we will start with is Map 2 - before you click on it, be warned that it is a huge file (8.54 Mb).  This Singapore map includes both latitudinal and longitudinal lines, as well as most of the major roads and housing estates, and will enable you to pinpoint the sighting location.  If you are good with Photoshop, or some such tool, and can handle layered jpeg files, e-mail me at slim.sreedharan@gmail.com and I can e-mail you the original .psd file for you to work on yourself.

• If you are not familiar with this sort of thing, don't let it bother you.  All sight records will be useful since there are huge gaps in our knowledge of distribution, even for common birds.  To enter your sightings onto the maps, just let us know exactly where the bird was seen.  If you have a GPS reading, so much the better.  Otherwise, give fairly precise details of the location and, wherever possible, include some obvious landmark, one we can easily locate on the Singapore A-Z maps.

• Once I get your data, I shall enter the details onto a blank layer on Map 3 to get a final distributional map for each species.  These maps, reduced in size, can then be loaded alongside the species accounts.

2.      Sighting reports

• When making a sighting report, don't stop at mere present or absent data.  As you will see from our species accounts, we have little or no information for many of our birds.  Make a note of the sort of habitat they frequent, whether it be deep forest, forest edge or tall grass? What do they eat?  Do they feed in the tree tops, the middle-canopy or near ground level?  Are they seen alone, in pairs, family parties or in flocks?  What other species do they normally associate with?  Do they join bird waves?

• Are they breeding in that area?  If so, record courtship behaviour, territorial songs and displays.  Is there a distinct breeding season in your area?  When and where do they build their nests, and what with?  Who builds the nest and incubates the eggs - or do both sexes share parental duties?  What are the young birds fed on?  Every little bit helps - there is so much that we have yet to learn about our birds.

• Ideally, sound files sound best in the mp3 format, recorded at 128 kbps and 44 KHz.  If you have such files, you can send them to the e-mail address given above.

• However, if the recording was made outside Singapore, we will need to know exactly where it was recorded.  Quite a few of our birds are also found in Thailand, West Malaysia, Sabah, Kalimantan, Sumatra and Java.  We cannot exclude the possibility that dialectical variations of the song can exist in different locations, rather like the differences between Singlish and Manglish!

• Obviously, we would like to have at least one picture of every bird, one each of the male and the female if it is a sexually dimorphic species.  However, this does not preclude the use of other pictures, to depict juvenile plumage, behaviour, nesting activity and so on.

• I tend to use small image sizes, 640 px by 480 px at 96 dpi for two reasons.  Firstly, the pictures load quickly and, secondly, they are less likely to be used illegally by publishers.  If you have difficulty with colour-correcting your pictures, just send it to us anyway and we will do the honours.  Also let us know if you wish to have your e-mail or website address shown alongside your pictures, just in case other viewers wish to contact you.  Don't worry, we will camouflage these to make it hard for spam bots to harvest your e-mail address.

• As for video footage, well, it is early days yet.  Let us just say, as they do in Malaysia, "akan datang"!