Birds of Britain & Ireland app for iPhone and iPad
4.6 (
4496 ratings )
Reference
Education
Developer:
NatureGuides Ltd.
17.99 USD
Current version:
1.0.7, last update: 7 years ago
First release : 13 Jan 2010
App size: 402.45 Mb
A high-quality digital field guide covering 271 species of birds regularly seen in Britain and Ireland. This list covers all except the rarest vagrants and includes every bird likely to be seen by the vast majority of birdwatchers in the UK throughout the year. Comprehensive information is provided including: multiple annotated illustrations by leading artists showing the full range of plumages including rarer races and variations, beautiful photographs for many species; songs and calls, maps showing distribution in the UK and in Europe and the full detailed text accounts from the Concise edition of Birds of the Western Palearctic (THE standard reference work originally published by Oxford University Press). Perfect for more experienced birders who will appreciate the comprehensive and professional ornithological content in this App.
FEATURES
• includes audio recordings of both songs and calls
• annotated illustrations by top bird artists including Ian Lewington, Alan Harris, Mike Langman and D I M Wallace
• superb portrait photographs for many species
• definitive text accounts from the Concise edition of Birds of the Western Palearctic
• information on typical behaviour, identification and plumage variations
• detailed distribution maps both for the UK and Europe
• quick search by species name
• organise bird names alphabetically or by family, with collapsible headings
• pinch zooming for visual assets
Pros and cons of Birds of Britain & Ireland app for iPhone and iPad
Birds of Britain & Ireland app good for
Above any other consideration, the possibility to change on the fly the common bird names into very many languages is truly unvaluable. You have to buy the in-app add on for that but it also adds many more european birds. It misses a way to identify a bird out of a few hints, so in this respect its usefulness depends by how expert you are in the first place, but in my opinion still retains a high value as a portable "encyclopedia" of european birds.
This app presents a wealth of professional-grade birding information in an easy-to-navigate format. Birds can be listed either alphabetically or by family, and each species has an overview screen that shows all the items (illustrations, photos, sounds, and descriptive text) available for that species. The app draws material from authoritative sources and combines it in a uniquely comprehensive single application.
The price may strike some as high, but paper versions of the same information would cost several times as much, and its refreshing to see companies willing to charge a fair price for a valuable reference application, a price that supports a living wage for developers and allows for a steady stream of updates and enhancements.
Comprehensive app with loads of images that show birds in different plumages. This is by far the best bird app Ive seen.
Some bad moments
Updated for In App purchase
Its hard to know what your getting with the In App upgrade. It supposedly adds species of Northern Europe but the interface for this app is so bizarre you have no way to see how many new species your getting or even what changed after installing it. In other words new species are not flagged.
It is a huge download; 74 MB, and took me 6 hours to install! It stalled 6 times and I had to restart the installer. They cant be using Apple servers as its just too slow,
You can read my complete review below but my advice remains the same: wait for a more decently designed UI like iBird or Audubon.
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This app is a really mixed bag of positives and negatives. Id give it more stars if it was not so hard to use. Wait for reviews before you buy.
PROS
• Tons of illustrations for every species showing numerous plummages
• Multiple vocalizations of some birds
• Large amounts of information about each species
CONS
• Unintuitive navigation makes content hard to ridiculous to access
• UI designed more like a Powerpoint presentation / slide show
• Uninspired illustrations no match to Peterson or other iPhone bird apps
• Lacking too many photos
• Panning illustrations sometimes doesnt work - zoom makes portions inaccessible
• Sounds are distorted
• NO SEARCH ENGINE!!!
• Priced to high considering lack of features ($24.99)
• Text is one huge scrolling page of dense writing that goes on forever and is poorly organized
• Style of writing reads like a PhD thesis
• No way to store Notes or Favorites
