Using phone apps to identify birds (Focus - December)

I spent a week in North Norfolk during the autumn birding in the numerous nature reserves along the coast. During the autumn migration one never knows what is going to turn up and the number of birders out and about every day means that many rarities and less common birds get picked up and reported. I was reflecting on how things had changed since I made a similar trip in the late 1970s. Back then, as well as binos and telescope, unless you knew the area and were a real expert, one had to lug around maps and field guides in pockets or a backpack. Now all you need is your phone and, depending on your interests, a handful of apps. The OS app gives you all the maps you want at a range of scales. Most reserves have a map board at the car park; a quick photo of that on arrival and you can navigate around the paths and hides with ease – rather than relying on memory as in the past.

One of the more frequent autumn migrant rarities is the Yellow Browed Warbler and there was a scattering of them along the coast on my recent visit. Like many warblers, this bird can be hard to pick out as its olive plumage and small size means you often only get a glimpse as it flits through the foliage. Now though you can prepare for your search by “swatting up” with an app. I use the Collins Bird Guide – like having the book version on your phone but with the advantage that it can play recordings of the bird’s calls and song. This is so much more useful than the somewhat bewildering verbal descriptions in the book. Telling the difference between two species on the basis of the one calls “hu-itt” and the other “hweet”? Hmmm. But after repeatedly listening to the recording on the app I found the Yellow Browed Warbler easy to identify when I heard it in the field. And after spotting it in the bushes I could then confirm my identification with another phone app – Merlin. This records birdsong and calls around you and identifies the species. It is not infallible but, with sufficient understanding of what you are expecting to see, it can be really useful to clinch sightings.

Other apps such as Obsidentify and Picture This are available which help you identify plants and other species of animals from a photo and in most cases to report where you found it. Similarly for birds, Birdtrack run by the British Trust for Ornithology allows you to record what you are seeing while in the field and then submit the results when you get home. Other apps are available for other groups or species. Ideally, we want to be able to report our sightings of wildlife and so enlarge our knowledge of its distribution and health, so these apps are a real boon.

Even if you don’t have an appropriate app, a photo can later be shared with local experts – often in area or species focussed WhatsApp Groups or forums – who may be able to identify what you have snapped.

So, the combination of all these phone apps and GPS which allows data loggers to track where you are at all times has really changed looking for and recording wildlife. With ever advancing AI one does wonder whether we will soon be able to wander through an area, scanning what we can see and hear through the phone, and this will instantly convert into geographically positioned and dated species lists. Which, although great from the point of view of getting good records, rather removes the sense of achievement from seeking things out and identifying them. We’ll see, but a phone is much lighter than loads of guidebooks, so I know which my back prefers.

​Andrew Graham