Costa Rica Birds app good for
Its a good app with a good number of photos and songs. When I click similar species it doesnt give me a back button to go back to where I was. You have to reset and go back to the bird which I find kind of annoying.
This app is well worth the price, and worth taking along birding. In effect a complete field guide --though only with photos, not illustrations -- the inclusion of both range maps and audio calls makes it hugely useful. There is also field guide text giving field marks, status and habits.
The app is well laid out to fit on the iPhone screen, making it nicely portable for use in the field. It also works well on iPad, using the larger screen to show its photos to full benefit.
My only wish would be a time bar when playing the audio calls. Also, the species with no audio still have the audio icon, just paler but in the same color. This is too subtle. Better would be a different icon indicating no audio is available or a clearer color difference, e.g. Red for none (this info could be displayed in the list view as well -- there is room, especially on iPad . In fact, you could add audio playback buttons in the list view.
I purchased this app for my iPod Touch 3. I like it: Its easy to use and has excellent content. Only, not all birds have vocalisations. I can only hope it will be updated. This expressed, dont hesitate to get it in advance of birding in Costa Rica.
Some bad moments
This app sucks, most of the photos are of poor quality, the info is sparse, the buttons to move between pages dont function properly, there is no way to compare birds beside each other. Save your money and dont buy this app.
I feel we were ripped off paying a premium amount for an APP that is not at all useful or user friendly. Yes, the pictures are fine but unless you are already very familiar with the birds of CR, using this app for identification is frustration personified. The checklist feature is useless. Nowhere can you access or see a compilation of the birds in the checklist that you have seen. Checking the seen button in the notes feature does not add the bird to your checklist. Also there is no way to edit the date and time of a sighting. The date and time recorded is fixed to the time you click the seen button in the app. Yes you could make additional notes for the correct time and date but then why bother.....
I love birding in Costa Rica, but carrying around a printed field guide is not a favorite part of it. This new app is just what I have been waiting for! It doesnt have all the birds that can be seen in Costa Rica - for example, it doesnt have the Solitary Eagle. But it does have everything youre likely to see, and Im sure the developers will continue to seek out and photograph those rarely seen species that are missing. I like the search features and I like being able to see the birds either by alphabetical listing or by family. You can mark in notes whether the bird was seen or heard, which I very much like. And, the maps help a lot. I can hardly wait for updates, such as being able to make lists for ebird.
Few and poor quality photos, poorly organized, many likely birds missing. This app is NOT worth the cost!!! Worst app Ive ever purchased.
We’re going to CR soon and I read about this; read about the developers; got it and ran it through some paces. It could use more pics of some of the birds but several are well illustrated. I cannot judge the correctness of data about the birds but two of the developers earn their livings leading bird watching tours in Costa Rica, where they all live; I can’t imagine they’d want to be associated with shoddy information.
As I write there are 578 birds in the app. You can filter them by Group, by Region/Stratum, by Color, Size, Head Pattern, Underparts, Back and Sound. Each one (I haven’t viewed them all) has information consisting of Field Marks, Description, Habitat, a range map and a place for you to write notes.
Of the birds in the filter you can sort them alphabetically or by group or family.
I’m impressed by the job they’ve done and I look forward to using the app in CR. If they had a few more pics and some more sounds I’d give it a 5.
Great photos! Super app support! Havent used it in Costa Rica yet, but am excited to do so this summer!
