Birding Apps Reviews

I’ve been using birding Field Guides for more than half a century and reviewing them here for more than two decades. In my lifetime they have gone from risible to magnificent, depending on where you are in the world. A number of trends have emerged some good, so not so much.

In my view the seminal moment was the publication of Collins Bird Guide in 1999. It set a new benchmark that only the very best guides have matched. Happily a number of other guides followed suit and the ones for North America and for Australia are as good. More recently Richard Crossley began publishing guides based on the idea of showing birds in typical habitat covering different ages, genders, flight modes and etc. Another publishing pinnacle.

Lastly, several of these guides have become first class apps that add the benefit of calls to the guides, and allow world birders to carry on their smartphone almost a world library of guides.

Below are reviews of apps, that I believe are the very best available.