bird song training app: Chirp! by iSpiny

One of the first bird apps that I have downloaded was “Chirp!” by iSpiny. There are two versions: one for “Bird Songs of Britain and Europe“  and one for “Bird Songs USA“. Both have about the same functionalities and they keep on adding birds. At the moment (November 22th 2009, with just another update) there are 78 birds for the European and 121 birds for the US app. You can narrow the selection by choosing states or regions. In the European version you can change the language of the app and the birds in the iPhone/iPod settings.
The app is designed in landscape mode and is kept very simple. This makes it easy to navigate. Besides the region selection one can either view the birds and listen to their songs (listen) or you can take quizzes (challenge).

listen
All the selected birds are listed with name and a little picture. It can be sorted by name, commonness and song type. The latter is a very helpful function that might help identify a bird by its song.
Tapping on one of the birds in the list selects it, shows a bigger picture and plays its song. It also activates the wiki link that will take you to wikipedia. In the newest update there is a little “i” symbol on the picture. Hitting it turns the picture around and gives you a short description on the bird song and migration of the bird.

challenge
chirp! offers four quiz levels. The levels differ by the number of birds being presented: 10, 20, all and custom or 7, 25, 50 and custom in chirp! USA. The custom level itself is divided into easy or hard.
In all the quizzes you get 10 songs to identify and you have three lives. you lose a life when you tap on the wrong bird. The faster you identify the bird song the more points you get. In the harder quizzes you not only get three birds to choose your solution from but six.

rating

0= non-existant
1 = more complicated than helpful
6 = excellent

What does the app offers for the learning purpose?
range of birds
difficulty levels
feedback in the quiz: 0
additional information for bird song training  (description of the song and sorting by song type can be very helpful, but there is almost always only one song per bird)

Look and feel
pictures  (only one photo of the male per bird)
handling

Additional information
additional bird information  (via wiki)
change of settings  (languages in the European version)

Summary
as a bird song training app: **3.5**
as a bird app: **4.66**
as an app: **5**
prize: $2.99 each or free versions

Brewer’s Blackbird

Diamond Lake, OR – August 31st, 2009

Female Brewer's Blackbird

Male Brewer's Blackbird

bird song training app – the review points

In my reviews on bird song trainings apps I want to include the following points. With this structure I want to make the apps comparebel

Functions
What does the app offers for the learning purpose?

• range of birds
• difficulty levels
• feedback
• additional information

Look and feel
How does the app look and how does it work?

• pictures
• handling

Additional information
What other information does the app offer

• additional bird information
• change of settings
• etc.

Please feel free to comment if you think that I forgot something important. Thank you.

Wordless Wednesday: the cat on the…

announcement: bird song trainers – a review of (iPhone) apps

I have missed this year’s fall bird migration almost entirely due to work. It was a wonderful sunny fall in Switzerland and therefor I’m a little sad that I didn’t have the time to be out enjoying nature a lot. But winter is actually my preferred birding time: the trees have lost their leaves and I can see the birds. I’m pretty bad with bird songs – I have a hard time identifying birds only by their songs and chirps.
But hey, there are iPhone apps to support my goal of knowing bird songs by next spring.

I plan to do a little series on bird song training apps: what exactly they offer and how they help me learning the bird songs. So far I have the following ones:

- chirp! and chirp! USA (by iSpiny)
- Vogelstimmentrainer (by InnoMoS GmbH in German)
and the quiz parts of
- Peterson iPhone Guide to Backyard Birds (by Wildtones)
- Birds (by Charles Mezak)

Please let me know if you know of any other apps that are useful as bird song trainers and I will include them in my review.

birding at Klingnauer Stausee

It was a very special friday: I had a day off AND the sun was shining! So I took the chance to go birding at the Klingnauer Stausee. The day before an Avocet was reported to ornitho – that might be the reason why there were some other birders around. I saw it too, but I couldn’t take a good picture.

I had a great time and saw 42 species, 3 lifers (Pied Avocet, Water Pipit, European Water Rail) and the Eurasian Stonechat for the first time in Switzerland.

Eurasian Curlew – Numenius arquata

Eurasian Curlew – Numenius arquata

Little Egret – Egretta garzetta

Little Egret – Egretta garzetta

Gadwall – Anas strepera

Juvenile Common Moorhen – Gallinula chloropus

Water Rail – Rallus aquaticus

2 Water Rails

Mute Swan – Cygnus olor

Winter Wren – Troglodytes troglodytes

Best bird pictures from our holidays – part 3

American Dipper (cinclus mexicanus)

Osprey (pandion haliaetus)

Red Crossbill (loxia curvirostra)

Oregon or Dark-Eyed Junco (junco hyeamlis oreganus)

Pictures taken on the North Umpqua Trail (Dipper) and the Lemolo Lake on end of August.

wordless wednesday

Are these cowbirds?

I need some help in identifying this bird. Could this be the female of a Brown-Headed Cowbird? (Seen on Lemolo Lake – close to Crater Lake – End of August 2009). Thank you so much for your help!

Maybe a close-up helps:

Is this a Cowbird?

Another female Cowbird?

Best (bird) pictures from our holidays – part 2

Nehalem Bay State Park August 28th on a short morning hike.
Can somebody help identify the other Gulls on the picture with the Heermann’s Gull?

Cedar Waxwing (bombycilla cedrorum)

Deer

brown Gull: Heermann's Gull 1st Winter (larus heermanni)

immature Bald Eagle (haliaeetus leucocephalus)