Shartphone Bird and Critter Logging Apps

If you want to track your bird sightings on your smartphone (iPhone or Android; also works on iPad and iPod Touch) instead of making paper and pencil notes, consider buying the BirdLog app from BirdsEye. You can contribute those sightings to a database maintained by Cornell University.

Here's the app's description on iTunes:

"BirdLog is the first and only mobile data app for quickly and easily recording and submitting your sightings directly into eBird from the field! Forget about notebooks, pencils and sitting at your computer. Transform your bird sightings into eBird submissions to build your own lists while sharing your sightings and supporting conservation.

You’ll enter more lists with BirdLog and enter them more accurately. It is easy to tally birds as you go—and thus counting them more accurately, automatically capturing the time and duration, and using the device’s GPS and map interface for greater precision of locations.

BirdLog was developed by active eBird users as a power app for submitting data into eBird. If you are not already familiar with eBird, we recommend that you visit ebird.org and register before using BirdLog the first time."

This YouTube video explains how the app works.


(If you buy the $9.99 App for Apple devices through this link, Dick Jordan will get a few dimes and nickels as a commission).

Project Noah also involves "critter cataloging."  Here's what its Website says:

"Launched out of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in early 2010, the project began as an experiment to mobilize citizen scientists and build a digital butterfly net for the 21st century. Backed by National Geographic, Project Noah is mobilizing a new generation of nature explorers and helping people from around the world appreciate their local wildlife. Our community is harnessing the power and popularity of new mobile technologies to collect important ecological data and help preserve global biodiversity."

 Its apps for iPhone and Android phones are free. This video demonstrates the iPhone version.



(Both BirdLog and Project Noah were reviewed at page 60 of the May/June 2013 issue of Sierra magazine.)