I’ve finally created a Facebook page for The Birder’s Library. I’m still trying to figure out the best usage of it, so if anyone has something they’d like to see there, please let me know. Feel free to add a discussion, or comment on the Wall. You should be able to do that if you have a Facebook account and become a fan of the page. But everyone should be able to view it.
And please check out my status update to help decide what gets reviewed next.
The Birder’s Library is proud to team up with the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club to give away two great books – Falcons of North America
Falcons, by Kate Davis, is an overview of the biology and ecology of these charismatic birds, focusing on the six North American species. Accompanying the text is a ton of incredible photos, some of which are just unbelievable. Full Review
Prairie Spring is another great read from Pete Dunne. Dunne takes the reader along on a tour of the North American prairie in spring. Dunne is one of my favorite authors, and does not disappoint here. Full Review. Note: this is an advance reading copy paperback.
So how can you win them?
Membership in the Conservation Club costs $25 per year. Back in December, I wrote about the benefits of joining the Club. This is a great way for birders to do something to help birds in trouble. Plus, you get to enter great contests like this one! They’ve already given away over a dozen prizes, and have even more contests open right now. If you win just one contest, you’ll get your money’s worth. And even if not, you’ll be supporting a very innovative approach to help out worthy causes, namely the birds that we all love.
Here are some reviews that were posted back in December.
by Anthony McGeehan
An anthology of insightful and humorous essays about birds and birding.
…I’ll finally be able to post my review of Birding from the Hip. I’d hoped to have done so last week, but computer problems keep popping up. If it weren’t for computers I wouldn’t have my job, but still, they can aggravate me to no end. In the meantime, just wanted to mention that I really enjoyed the book, and think it’s well worth a read.
Another thing that’s well worthwhile are the Watching Warblers and Watching Warblers WEST DVDs from Birdfilms. The video footage is just amazing; it blew me away. A full review is forthcoming. That is, if I can thwart my computer’s evil plans.
Huh? That would have been my reaction a couple years ago to the concept of birding and social media. Sure, I used some listservs and forums to get birding news, but the idea that Facebook could be useful for birders would have been laughable.
Not anymore. Social media – Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and the like – has been extremely useful for other industries and groups, and birding is no different.
If you’d like to find out what this social media thing is all about, and how it can be helpful to you as a birder, then you’re in luck. Gunnar Engblom has long been championing its use to birders, and he has now put together a 31 day Social Media workshop for birders.
The workshop is free, and will take the form of posts on his blog. I’m really looking forward to this, I’ve been needing a push to get off my butt and sign up on Twitter!
I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and that this new year will be full of new birds!
I had intended to use my time off work to finish some reviews, but between the holidays, out of town trips, and computer problems, that hasn’t really worked out. The computer issues especially may keep me from doing much until next week. Well, at least I can keep reading (and keep getting even further behind!).
by Thomas S. Schulenberg, Douglas F. Stotz, Daniel F. Lane, John P. O'Neill, and Theodore A. Parker III
An indispensable guide to one of the birdiest countries in the world.
Birders with an iPhone or iPod Touch need to check out this digital field guide.
Digital cameras, digital photo frames, eBook readers, it seems like the whole world is going digital these days. And now digital field guides are here. You can think of these as traditional field guides on steroids, yet even smaller.
You still get the regular stuff found in field guides: illustrations, range maps, basic identification and natural history information. But the format also allows for much more. You can play a bird’s song from within the field guide. Or access information that otherwise would have required cracking open another book or doing an internet search.
Aside from the portability, possibly the best thing about the medium is that it allows you to search for a bird in so many more ways. For instance, if you don’t know the name of a bird you want to look up, you don’t have to go looking through the accounts as you do in a printed guide. Just input some characteristics in the search function, and the guide will narrow down the possibilities for you.
There are now several digital field guides available to birders, mostly for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices. This is a brief comparison of those for North America.
$4.99
Website
The Good
The Bad
Audubon is the only one of these apps to exclusively use photos for illustrations. They’re nice and work pretty well. But I don’t particularly like the interface (the design and, especially, slow response). The biggest plus this app offers is the hook into eBird for finding birds, which is especially useful if you don’t have the BirdsEye app. (I think BirdsEye does this slightly better than the Audubon app, but is more expensive and obviously doesn’t also come with a field guide!) Overall, the Audubon app is an acceptable field app, especially for those who prefer photos to drawings.
$19.99
Website
The Good
The Bad
iBird has been greatly improved since I first reviewed it, with added sounds along with new and improved illustrations. This is perhaps the best app for newer birders. However, the lack of variety in illustrations and relatively poor treatment of difficult-to-identify species means that it will be less useful to more advanced birders.
Note: there is now an iBird Ultimate version, which includes even more features.
Try out iBird for free with iBird Lite Guide to Birds, which includes 60 sample species.
Full Review of iBird Explorer app (Note: I need to update this review to include the latest app improvements)
$9.99
Website
The Good
The Bad
The latest print edition of National Geographic Birds is a great field guide, but I was surprised to find that this app not only does justice to it (with the exception of the small images), but actually improves upon it in surprising ways. For instance, it not only gives a list of similar species, but also specific tips on how to differentiate them. And it does this for every bird, as far as I can tell. This, combined with a good selection of sounds (and a great interface for playing them), makes this app a useful one in the field.
Try out this NatGeo app for free with Birds Lite by National Geographic, which includes 70 sample species.
$14.99
Website
The Good
The Bad
This app does a good job of presenting the Peterson field guide, as well as many other sources from the Peterson guide series, in a digital format. It makes a very good reference app on the iPad. And for the price (currently $4.99, though sometimes on sale for even cheaper), it’s a great deal. However, due to the limited sounds and the iPhone interface, I don’t think it works well as a field app.
There is also a Peterson Birds Pocket Edition app. For only $0.99, you get ALL the species of the full app, including all the field guide illustrations, sounds, maps, and species account text. But you lose some cool features, like the additional Peterson guide content and the list capabilities. This version is an incredible bargain.
Full Review of Peterson Birds of North America app
$19.99
Website
The Good
The Bad
I love always having my Sibley guide with me via this app. The print edition is still my favorite field guide, and this app is likewise the one I turn to first, even though it doesn’t have some of the information and features found in other apps. Basically, what you get is the contents of the print guide plus sounds, filtering, and list features. But the main content – the illustrations and sounds – are the best.
Try this app out for free with The Sibley eGuide to the Birds of North America LITE, which includes 30 sample species.
Full Review of The Sibley eGuide app
So which one of these bird apps belongs on your device? It depends on how it will be used. For use in the field viewing images and playing sounds, I prefer the Sibley app. But Audubon and NatGeo also work in that regard, and each bring different feature sets that other apps don’t have. iBird is a little different, in that it may be the best app for beginners (easy to use, great filtering), but experienced birders will be frustrated by the lack of variation depicted. As a reference (especially on an iPad), NatGeo, iBird, and Peterson are great because of the extra information they include. Peterson, especially, contains a LOT of reference material, looks great on the iPad, and is an exceptional value.
For a more detailed comparison of features, here are a couple more resources. Robert Mortensen, of the Birding Is Fun! blog, has a useful Feature comparison table. Also, the folks at iBird have compiled an extensive comparison. (Keep in mind that one of the competing companies produced this table, and there are a few oversights/mistakes as of this writing. However, overall it appears very fair and objective to me.)
Finally, I wanted to mention that all of these apps, except iBird, feature some sort of listing capabilities. You could keep a life list or record sightings on them, but honestly, I don’t see why you would want to. None of them work very well for that. However, Peterson and NatGeo offer some additional listing capabilities that could prove very useful. In Peterson, you can create, import, and export various lists. You can think of them as analogous to playlists for mp3’s. NatGeo is more limited right now, as you’re limited to creating lists or using a few pre-packaged ones.
