Costa Rica Birds App Recensioni

This is not a well constructed app. Search does not even fully load and is therefore not useable. The set up is horrible for figuring out the identity of birds seen and is nearly impossible without the ability to filter birds. This is a $15 list of the birds of Costa Rica with minimal pictures and inconsistent quality of sounds. Spend your money on “The Birds of Costa Rica” field guide book and start exploring eBird!

This Costa Rica app was one of the best we have ever used, having tried not only North American bird apps like iBird Pro and Sibleys, but also Collins for Europe and other apps. It was extremely easy to use, quickly recording species seen (or heard) and any extra notes. The range maps and natural history information were also very helpful, as was the ability to sort by common name, groups of birds, etc. One of the nicest features is having the ability to export a CSV file with the list of birds seen or even better, the Notes file which includes scientific names, notes, family, GPS coordinates etc. We brought along the paper field guide as well, but most days we were happy just to have our phones with the app and look at the book later. Highly recommended!

I was surprised to see low ratings for this app, then noticed most were 7-9 years old! It has been updated many times since it’s release and is now, late 2023 an excellent app for birding in Costa Rica. To be clear you will not find a serious birder in Costa Rica without this APP!

You get exactly what you expect from people from Panama creating a book for another country. The range maps are god awful. They could of spent a little time im trying to make them even a little accurate. How about actually adding a rare color to the maps instead of telling us bare faced ibis residents. So many of these inaccuracies. For people that boast on their photos. You would think there would be more. Or actually good Ones. So many talented photographers could of been used in submissions. The audio is basically the worst. No consistency what so ever. If you are just an average birder or non birder. This online book will barely get you by. They could of done so much more with this. Or spent time creating it. Also never updates species. Lots of wrong names and merges that will likely never get changed. I give it 2 stars cause it’s adaquate as a list for the country. It pretty much ends there

Unable to return to the main menu. It is stuck on the email section!

Bug fixed; I’m a happy camper. Looking forward to further enhancements.

This app is great, much easier than carrying a book and shuffling through the pages. There is a filter function that allows you to search for birds by characteristics like colors and size. Finding the birds like that is really easy without knowing their names. I also like the ability to mark them as seen and heard. Then you can go and filter by marked as seen and you get a list with the species that you have observed. Great work.

I recently purchased but with the Apple iSO 13.1.2 update the app doesn’t seem like it is supported. The app was not able to search species and after deleting and reinstalling the app is not launching /opening. Trying to figure out what is happening and how to contact the developer but until resolved be aware it may not interface currently with this version of apple

Love the photos, sounds and range maps. A very needed tool.

A lot of people at Arenal Observatory Lodge in La Fortuna were using this app. Loved the fact they have photos, vocalizations and ranges attached to the bird description. Being able to email a photo of the bird to the developers is very handy for hard-to-identify species. Nice touch.

I am not on expert birder, but know what I am doing. This app makes identification challenging, and impossible. The birds are listed alphabetically by their proper names so if you don't know that the quetzl is called the resplendent quetzl, there is no way to find the bird. I tried many times to filter by bird characteristics and not one time did it give me the relevant bird. The photos are no good either. I am EXTREMELY disapointed because my trip to Costa Rica is over and the app didn't help me once.

Several of us had this app on our iPhones on our recent trip to Costa Rica. It ended up being a very useful tool.

It's a good app with a good number of photos and songs. When I click similar species it doesn't 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.

Released too early. Lots of omissions. Same group that made Panama guide. Wait awhile before you buy.

I have now been using for 2 months on my visit to Costa Rica. Since I was use to Ibird Pro took a little getting use too but now find it very easy and thorough. For me it has been an excellent acquisition and considering the price for a book an excellent value. Heartily recommend.

Information provided is minimal & not worth the price...

Easier to use than a book-the search functions are good. But the list function will not display location option long enough to turn it on. Almost impossible to add notes and they don't display. Needs more flight photos. I wish all birding apps worked like Collins Europe.

Many pictures missing, no support for GPS in settings, the photo page does not support normal photo dimensions when adding your own. Helps with some identification and details but would expect a lot more from an app at this price.

We went on a two week birding trip in Costa Rica. I had ordered a plastic bird card in addition to the book. I saw this app and thought it was only a few dollars more than the plastic card so I downloaded it. In the field, I stopped carrying the book and card and only used the app. The rest of the group were constantly asking to see it even though our excellent guide had the book. The only con is that the families are listed under the scientific name rather than common. When you type in hummingbird, not all the listed hummingbirds come up. We have been birding in a number of Central and South American countries where even finding a decent book was difficult. We were delighted to find this great app. The other reviewer stated that the national bird, clay colored thrush, is not listed. I just checked the app and it is there. Suggest he use the search function at the top of the lists. You have to scroll up to get to it.

This app is given 3-star rating only based on nice photos but should get only 1-star if based on descriptions of birds which is totally lacking. And what self-respecting Costa Rica bird guide wouldn't even include the national bird of Costa Rica? This one doesn't. It is overpriced despite the nice photos due to missing data.

Although I may never completely untether from the book format field guide, this app superbly supplements the most current such field guide. Of the three named contributors/developers, two are among the most highly regarded birding guides in Costa Rica (both mentioned most recently by Richard Garrigues in the acknowledgments of the second edition of his field guide), and their expertise is ably demonstrated in the species accounts. They continue to add new species , new photos,new range maps and new sound recordings. And this birder is grateful to the developers for NOT following the trend of so many. Their updates are not limited to devices with only the most current OS. The current app release 3 can be used on devices with OS 5 or later, which means that I retain full functionality on my iPot Touch 4G. Anyone interested in the birds of Central America will enjoy this app, and birders will welcome the availability of supplementary information and bird sound recordings in the field.

As a beginner I think it could use more filters such as throat patch or head color. Also more pictures than just one to show the opposite sex or from different angles. The ability to enlarge the photo would also be helpful (I have an iphone5).

The alphabetical list by Name is on the first name and is virtually useless. The alphabetical list by Group is sorted on the name of the first bird in the group. For example Grosbeaks, Buntings & Allies is listed under G. You would have to know the Buntings are in this group, since you can’t look it up alphabetically. There is a workaround. Click on Filter Bird List top right of screen. Click on Group, the first box. If Alphabetic is showing on the top right of the screen, select it and an Alphabetic listing of the bird groups appears. Much easier to scroll through this list to pick up other birds in the list, for example Sparrows in the Group Seedeaters, Finches & Sparrows. Selecting the list of interest allows you to return to the bird filter screen, shows the number of birds found, and by selecting <Back at top right returns to the bird list showing only the selected group. The alphabetical list by Group has two selections for G, S, and T. None for F, R, or V. Searching for a Orioles using the search engine as described above returned 0 birds. If this happens try resetting. Use of hyphenation in birds with two last names, like Bush-Thrush, is inconsistent. Sometimes it is Bush Thrush. There are numerous examples of this in both first and last name fields. It would be very helpful to use the Audubon approach lumping birds by how they look, such as Long Legged Waders, Ducklike , Shorebirds etc. I ended up entering Family, Group, First Name, Last Name in an Excel spreadsheet allowing sorting by any of these headers, then adding a column with the Audubon categorization to search on to make a quick reference guide for the field.

This app has a lot of data, and it is great to be able to carry around all of the birding info in your pocket. However, as another commenter pointed out, it is hard to search. You can filter birds by color, etc., but you cannot search by name. If you want to find a Quetzal for instance, the only way to do it is to scroll down the list of 622 birds until you get to “R” (R because it is listed by its full name … resplendent quetzal). if you are an expert birder that is comfortable with bird names, etc., this app might be useful. For a beginning birder that just wants to get an idea of what they are seeing on a trip to Costa Rica, it is not very useful.

I used this in Nicaragua and it was a big help. Shortcomings: alphabetical listing is by the first word in the common name. You can't search for "dove, inca" or "dove, mourning", you have to search for "inca" or "mourning" which makes no sense at all. The photos are wonderful. Families are listed, but not in alphabetical order, a real drag. It wouldn't take much to make this a great ap for us amateur birders.

I used this guide in Southern Mexico, not being able to find a local guide book. I used it a lot, and found it at times frustrating. Why no Spanish names for birds? No search for bird names first or last. Visiting in May I would have appreciated if the filter function could have excluded the migrating birds.

app helpful but has major needs. If looking at a bird, you cannot go back to where you started looking at that bird, but it reverts to the beginning. You then have to scroll thru it all again. Also no way to put in a search for bird looking for, for example, a tanager, but have to scroll down thru everything. Needs major update.

Great photos! Super app support! Haven't used it in Costa Rica yet, but am excited to do so this summer!

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.

Few and poor quality photos, poorly organized, many likely birds missing. This app is NOT worth the cost!!! Worst app I've ever purchased.

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 doesn't have all the birds that can be seen in Costa Rica - for example, it doesn't have the Solitary Eagle. But it does have everything you're likely to see, and I'm 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.