Best Apps For The Birdwatcher

Birding has become all the rage these days, with travel companies even offering tailor-made bird watching holidays around the world. If you’re an expert or an avid amateur, make sure you don’t leave the house without one of these bird-watching apps.

iBird

For beginners, the most recommended app would be iBird. It’s easy to use and has a wide range of species along with their photos, calling sounds and marks. It even suggests similar species for if you’re not sure what you just saw. The downside about this app is it’s exclusive to birds in North America, but at least you know they’re the experts in this field.

Peterson

This app is more for the experienced birdwatcher, but once again only exclusive to birds of North America. With this app you can compare several species depending on what you saw, heard and your location. You can create checklists, too, so you can instill a bit of competitiveness among you, your friends and family and other users of the app.

eBird

eBird is the app for the traveling birdwatcher. You can download checklists for the area you’re in, and then upload them directly from any location. This app aims to amass a vast database of bird sightings around the world, and you can be part of it.

National Geographic

The National Geographic birding app contains the most birds, and it’s useful to identify rare birds. It can even be used in tandem with another app, Sibley, for if you want to cross reference and double check. The Sibley e-guide also boasts a large database of birds and is similarly handy for classifying rare birds.