You don't have to keep records to be a good birder. But most serious birders eventually begin making notes of what they see.

Why? Because keeping track of your sightings multiplies your pleasure. After a few years, your personal database allows you to make good guesses about when you'll see the season's first pine warbler, or when you'll hear the last white-throated sparrow of the spring.

Furthermore, when you page back through your sightings, you relive the excitement. I'll never forget my first roseate spoonbill in Florida.

Thanks to my database, I can see the notes for that day whenever I want.

As someone who's tried virtually every piece of birding software out there, I vote for Avisys, the brainchild of the prickly but meticulous Jerry Blinn.

I've used Avisys for a decade. In my opinion, whatever's in second place is so far back you can't see it. Avisys is as fast as a scalded cat, allows you to review your data in a blue million ways, and produces handsomely formatted hard copy if you need it.

However, there are good free alternatives.

If you like the idea of helping ornithologists keep tabs on America's avian population, consider the web-based eBird system at ebird.com.

EBird, managed by scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is now into version 2.0. It has continually improved over its seven-year lifetime.

When the Web site started, getting your birding locations into the system was a bear. Data entry is faster, and it's easier to define locations.

One cool aspect of eBird is its info on local birding hotspots. Local birders have entered huge numbers of birding spots and what's been seen there. There are a bunch for Roanoke and western Virginia.

Although I can't give up Avisys, I recently started sending observations to eBird again. The idea that my data will help ornithologists and conservation biologists and land managers makes me feel good.

With eBird, it's a snap to send your observations to an Internet birding list or anybody else with an e-mail address. Furthermore, Jerry Blinn created a way to export your Avisys data to eBird.

The new kid on the Web-based birding record block is Aviatlas, at aviatlas.com. The site's project leader is Tucson-based Eva Baird, who lived for 8 years in Blacksburg and created the program while she was there.

An increasing number of birders in our part of the state use Aviatlas, which is focused on listing local hotspots. Roanoke-area birders have defined eight hotspots in and around Roanoke and Daleville. Western Virginia is the best-represented part of Commonwealth. There are also forums where the finer points of Aviatlas are discussed.

I love the look of the terrain maps in Aviatlas. But they're still ironing out a few wrinkles. The user ID and password for the main site, for example, won't work with the forums. But Baird tells me that fixing that peculiarity is at the top of her list.

The bottom line is that, whatever tool you use, keeping track of what you see will make you a better and happier birder.

Give it a try.