Challenge YOURSELF!

An app that helps you connect with like-minded birders, and sets you challenges? What could be better if you’re just starting out?

OK, so it’s not strictly ‘gear’, but in the last 10 years phone and tablet apps have become more and more a part of the birdwatching experience, so every now and then we like to take a look at what’s new. It’s fair to say that we hadn’t come across anything like Birda before.

The vast majority of birding apps, after all, are about helping you to identify birds more easily, or helping you record your sightings more easily, or both. Now, there is an element of both of those in Birda, but they’re not its ‘raison d’etre’. That, put simply, is sharing the joy of birdwatching with a wider community.

Modern birding

Think of it as being a bit like one of those apps such as Strava, which the more energetic among you may have used to record and share your running and cycling exploits. Or like an entirely birdwatching-focused Facebook.

Basically, you sign up and create your profile, and then you start posting whenever you’ve been birding. You can add as much detail to sightings as you like, and of course photos, and you can log longer birding sessions too, as well as individual birds.

Straight away, you start getting feedback on your posts from other posters, and you can follow them, and they can follow you. One of the nice things that I immediately noted is that the tone of the interactions is invariably positive and polite, so it’s a great place to be if you’re fairly new to birdwatching.

Of course, you can get a bit of ID help from other posters, if you’ve photographed something that you’re not quite sure of, and you can also use the app to log pretty much everything you see, if you want to. If you’re an experienced birder, you do get slightly bemused at times to see species such as Starling flagged up as lifers for you, but that’ll obviously drop off as you go along. I also found that using the app made me stop and look and think a little bit harder about some of those everyday species that we can start to take for granted.

All good so far, but the feature that I really enjoyed most about Birda is the challenges that it offers. Some of these are fairly long-term, others monthly or even shorter, and some are geographically-based or focus on a particular theme. There was, for example, a Rutlandbased

one for anybody who attended last summer’s Global Birdfair to have a go at.

Fun and helpful

All of them, I have to say, do a good job at encouraging you to get outside and go and do some birding. There’s an element of competition, I suppose, but it’s friendly and largely with yourself, and it helps you maintain your enthusiasm and purpose.

If you’re a beginner or ‘improver’, then I recommend Birda whole-heartedly – it'll give you encouragement, ideas, and support as you learn about birds. If you’re a more experienced birder, well I still recommend it whole-heartedly. It never does any harm to be reminded that we watch birds because it’s fun.