Hi Adrian
(I have answered your email in the thread, because, amongst other things it is to large to post as an email - I hope this is OK)
For the moment don't worry about trying to change any folders or what is in them.
A keyword hierarchy is what you need.
Although one can purchase keyword lists IMHO anyway it is much the better to construct one yourself.
The reason why is that only you know how detailed your hierarchy needs to be.
My keyword list is 44 000 keywords (and still growing) but it is possible that for your purposes it is way overkill.
It is also possible that it is not detailed and comprehensive enough for you.
I seem to recall suggesting creating a TEST catalog and importing only a few images into it.
Use this catalog to get to learn how to build your keyword list.
Create a few keywords, get familiar with the options regarding creating non-exportable keywords, child or nested keywords.
Apply some of these keywords to a couple of images and see how they behave.
The 'Keywording' sub panel has a drop down menu called 'Keyword tags'.
Check the options 'Keywords & Containing Keywords' and then 'Will Export' and see what happens to the listed keywords.
One option gives you all the keywords of the whole hierarchy while the other will only show exportable keywords.
I use non-exportable keywords a lot to organise my keyword hierarchy.
I capitalise these keywords so it is clear what there role is.
For example I have a top-level keyword called 'ANIMALS'.
This is a non-exprotable keyword and functions as a container for the next level of keywords which happen to be 'vertebrates' and 'invertebrates and then inside 'vertebrates' are found 'birds', mammals, 'reptiles', 'fish'.
Birds are classified as 'passerines' and 'non-passerines' and so it goes.
I also use non-exportable keywords to further organise myself inside complicated taxonomic hierarchies like my botanical keyword hierarchy so words such as 'CLADE' and 'FAMILY' are present in multiple places to aid my understanding.
In the biological taxonomies I will use combinations of English and Latin terms as primary keywords.
Synonyms are very useful, so for example the latin term 'chordata' is used as a synonym of the keyword 'vertebrates'.
At a species level I use the most widely accepted English name and the Latin species name is included as a synonym.
You seem to like birds so I would investigate the taxonomic classification of birds and use the experience of creating a keyword hierarchy of birds as a learning experience that can be applied to all the other hierarchies you will need to create.
I may have mentioned already that it is not necessary to have a complete hierarchy before it becomes very useful.
Again, as an example, I have a hierarchy called 'WORLD LOCATION'.
The next level is 'continent' and then 'island'
In continents reside 'Africa', 'Australia' 'Europe' etc.
I have all the countries of the world listed.
In Australia I have EVERY place name down to suburb and village for the whole continent in correct hierarchical order something like this:
Australia
Queensland
South-East Queensland
City of Brisbane
Hamilton
Hamilton Wharf
Each level done to Hamilton, which is a suburb of Brisbane is complete.
Hamilton Wharf is listed as a child of Hamilton because I actually have shot images there.
It is actually a large residential/commercial development on the banks of the Brisbane River and if needed to I could actually include a street address as the next level of keyword.
As an aside the advantage of using keyword hierarchies is that the Brisbane River belongs in a different section called 'RIVERS AND WATERWAYS'. Inside here is similar to 'WORLD LOCATION' but not as detailed so the 'Brisbane River' is found under 'Australia'>'Queensland'.
You may be tempted to think that if I was keywording images shot at Hamilton Wharf that included the Brisbane River that keywords might be duplicated since 'Australia' and 'Queensland' appear in two hierarchies but Lightroom is clever enough not to do this with the exportable keywords.
Non-exportable keywords are also useful to allow organisation in Lightroom but will never be included on exporting an image. You may export images depicting family members but might not want their names (as keywords) to be exported.
In 'WORLD LOCATION' many countries have absolutely no child keywords listed because it is relatively unlikely I will visit them but if I should plan to go to Algeria some day I will be sure to research how Algeria is organised geographically and politically and apply the results to the keyword hierarchy in preparation of my visit there.
I actually did this very thing preparing for an expedition to Southern Africa last year - I now have very detailed locational detail for South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia - the three countries I visited.
I have several resources for you to look at in preparing a keyword hierarchy:
Take a look at Seth Resnick's Workflow book;
Metadata.org is a very useful website to get acquainted with;
The Luminous Landscape website has a very good tutorial series called "Where the #$%^ are my Pictures" that is worth every cent; and
Our own Victoria Brampton's FAQ book explains the nuts and bolts of how Lightroom works including all aspects of metadata acquisition and keywording and how to use this to organise oneself.
Take a look at these resources, experiment in your TEST catalog, learn some skills and then get back to us with questions based on your experiences and learnt skills.
Tony Jay