Review: Sibley eGuide to Birds App for Android

I have finally entered into the decade of my peers and now have a phone that gives me the ability to enjoy apps!  I'm still a cheap son-of-gun so I chose to go with an Android powered Samsung Intercept on the VirginMobile network - which has an unlimited data and text plan and 300 minutes for just $25/mo.  Finally there are some apps I can review myself!  I, like you, can still look forward to plenty of iPhone and iPad reviews from Jim Lyons and Scott Tuthill in the future.

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Sibley's field guides have been my favorite go-to guides.  There are several great new field guides which I use regularly too, but Sibley's guides are always my first resource.  Downloading the Sibley eGuide to Birds was naturally my first choice.  Now that I've had a couple of weeks to get familiar with the app and test it in the field I feel prepared to share my thoughts about this really cool tool.  I've also been using the Audubon Birds App which has served as a comparison, which app I will review here soon.

Main menu screen of the Sibley eGuide to Birds in landscape/horizontal view.

The Sibley eGuide to Birds is like having all the great information and illustrations in the Big Sibley in a much more compact and portable form.  Plus, the app has super cool features that a book does not.  You can refer to Sibley's website for all the neat things this app has like how many illustrations and species, etc, so I'll just talk about what I like about it, how I use it, and what improvements I recommend for the next version.

Scrolling thru the taxonomic index, headings appear in larger font to help you 

Navigating my way through the app is very user-friendly and intuitive.  I tested it out on my wife and 10-year old and they too were able to quickly find specific things I threw at them.  I really like and regularly use both the taxonomic and alphabetic indexes.  I can find whatever species I am looking for in seconds.   The scrolling functionality and display on the indexes is great.  Sibley's illustrations and text are familiar to Sibley field guide owners and easy to scroll through with the swipe of my finger.  You can even zoom in on the images for a closer look.

Having all the bird songs and calls embedded in the field guide is a really nice.  Printed books just don't have that ability.  There is a good assortment of songs and calls for each species.  They are labeled as to where in North America the recording was made which I find to be enormously helpful as birds in different regions have some variability in their calls.

The range map is available with the tap of your finger on the map icon - and I still like Sibley's color-coding system better than any other field guide out there.  It's nice that you have the ability to enter your own sighting notes for each species, including the date and location, which I used to write in the margins of my first Sibley guide.  I wouldn't use this type of feature anymore since I am so devoted to entering all my sightings into eBird, but I still like that this tool is there and available should I want to employ it.

While in one of the indices, with a quick selection of the the "eye" icon in the pull-up menu, I can select two bird species that I want to compare.  This is a great feature that I was afraid would be lost in the eGuide version as compared to the books.  Here the screen splits and scrolls independently which is wonderful.



Suggestions for the next edition:

Main screen in vertical view

Fat-fingering is a big problem for me on these small electronic devices with touch-screens.  I tend to click on the wrong items frequently.  App developers can help people like me by spreading out the choices a bit, or making them larger.  For the Sibley eGuide in portrait view (the device held vertically like a phone) the items on the menu screen are a wee bit small.  In landscape view (the device held horizontally - how you hold it if you have slide-out keypad) the menu list is just perfect for my fat thumbs.

Having the text on the same screen as the illustrations isn't necessary.  The current version has a split-screen which can scroll independently which is cool, but having the icon there to bring up the full text in its own screen is sufficient.

I tried out the Smart Search, where you select characteristics of the bird and it helps narrow down the possibilities.  I have to admit that I got frustrated with Smart Search after testing to see if it could help me identify birds.  For example, I plugged in a couple attributes for Cedar Waxwing, but it never came up in the narrowed field.  So, either Smart Search is meant for people smarter than I am, or its just not that smart yet.  I have come to the conclusion that I'd never really use that feature anyway, so why dwell it any more.

One other issue that I continue having is what are called a "forced close", where the app shuts down on me, sometimes with an error message and sometimes without.  I notice this happens only when I use the "back" button on my device (not in the app itself) and it will more often than not not allow me back into the eGuide without powering off the phone and turning it back on.  I'm not sure if this is a device problem, user error, or an app development issue.

Conclusion:

The Sibley eGuide to Birds rocks!  It provides all the great attributes of Sibley's printed field guides with additional cool features.  Every birder, beginner to expert, will benefit from and enjoy this app.

This birding app costs $29.99, which is pretty expensive in the world of 99-cent smartphone apps.  But think about it this way...if you buy a field guide and bird song CD's separately, you've already spent more than $30 and you're missing out on the valuable convenience of the digital app on your phone.  There are other birding field guide apps out there for less money, but they just ain't Sibley!

*Disclosure: David Sibley, in partnership with the fine folks at MyDigitalEarth.com reimbursed me for the cost of this app when I expressed interest in posting my review online.* 

Recent Happenings at My Patch

The Belted Kingfisher pair are near their burrow every time I visit now.  I got this long distance shot, the best I could do with my 150mm lens.  A couple days later I spent my entire lunch-hour within 15 feet of this favorite perch standing as motionless as possible with my finger on the shutter button.  The Kingfisher made a couple of approaches but would never land.  I'll try again soon, but I'll rig up a blind.  Anyway, while I was there waiting for the Belted Kingfisher, four Mallards were oblivious to my presence and were putting on a show for me.  


UPDATE:  Yesterday at my patch I heard the Belted Kingfisher rattle, but they were not near the burrow. The river water levels have risen and the burrow, while not underwater, is saturated.  I'm guessing the Kingfishers will have to go a little higher in this bank or they may have already moved on.  I'll keep watching!

I've been seeing more and more Downy Woodpeckers.  This male appeared to have two female companions around. 

I've not seen too many squirrels at my patch.  When I saw this guy hiding in a tree with a storm rolling in behind him, I just had to take the photo.

Downy Woodpecker: A Backyard Study

While refilling the backyard feeders, I heard loud drumming above me in the tree.  It took me a few minutes wandering around the base of the tree looking up and getting a nice neck cramp and making the neighbors sure of my absolute lunacy, but I did eventually find that female Downy Woodpecker perched on a dead split branch.  She wasn't eating, just drumming away.  "Why was she drumming?" I asked myself.  Was she signaling her readiness to mate?  Was she establishing her territory?  There has been a second female hanging around recently, but not today.  Perhaps she lost out to this little drummer.  She was certainly communicating something 'cause while else would she be bangin' her head on a dead stick.

While looking at this little drummer gal I noticed several hollows in my tree that I had never noticed before.  Well, I'll be!  I've got a dozen natural and bird-made cavities in my tree, perfect spots for Woodpeckers, Owls, Kestrels, and of course Starlings.

She really enjoys the suet feeder and I find her there several times a day.  She never lets me get real close for photos, so these shots are the closest yet.  As I approach, she tends to zoom up the tree, on the backside of course, occasionally peering around to see if I am still there and then goes up a few more feet.  Once at the thinner branches she flies off to the larger tree.

Later, I watched her flitting around the branches chasing live insects.  She stealthily approaches the bug and in an instant snatches it from the bark.  Sometimes the bug flies and she follows it with her eyes and gives chase once the bug lands on another branch.  I never see her fly-catching on the wing.  Other times she pecks at the bark digging for burrowed-in bugs and larvae as one would expect a woodpecker to do.

This evening I had my 6 year old daughter Victoria with me observing the dainty Downy.  We talked about how she used her tail to prop herself up against the tree trunk and we looked at her color pattern, where the white was and where the black was.  The white spots on the wings and the white patch on the back.  The black and white stripes on the face.  We saw her pounding her hard bill on a branch looking for food.

When I uploaded the photos, I was delighted to find this one showing the long pink tongue.  I recall a diagram showing how a woodpeckers tongue wraps up inside its skull.  It's feet are pretty cool too.

Sometimes backyard birding, actually watching and observing behavior, can be just as fulfilling and perhaps more interesting as a trip to a new location racking up lifers.

Utah Birder Profile: Robert Williams

Robert Williams
Provo, Utah

How did you get into birding? Did you or do you have a birding mentor and can you tell us about that person? Did you have a “spark bird”?

My older brother Chris Williams got me into birding. My first birding trip was with Chris; we went to Heber Valley and saw a pair of Whooping Cranes. I thought it was cool and started to tag along with him. For me there has not been one “spark bird” but many--my first Red Cross-bill in Flagstaff Arizona, a White Crowned Pigeon, Jamaican Crow and Jamaican Tody in Jamaica, the Violet Crowned Humming Bird at the Patten’s Yard in Patagonia Arizona, and many more.

How long have you been birding?

I have been birding for about 10 years but, I have only been a bird addict for about 5 or 6 years.

How often do you go birding? And where do you regularly go birding?

If life permits (and if it doesn't) I go birding 3-5 times a week. My favorite spots are the Provo airport dike, Kunie Wetlands, and the Benjamin slough/Lincoln beach area.

Where is your favorite place to bird in Utah? In the U.S.? in the world?

Some of my favorite places in the state are Lytles Ranch, Zions National Park, and the Moab Area. My favorite place out of state would have to be Ruby Valley, Nevada; I spent a weekend there last May and found 121 species in two days; it is an amazing place!

Where in your state/province would you say is the most under-birded place that may have great untapped potential? 

I think there are some great places in the four corners area, I am sure there are many missed rarities that are just never found.

How would you describe yourself as a birder? A “watcher”, a “lister”, a “chaser”, “ticker”, “twitcher” all of the above, or something else? 

I like to think that my birding addiction is a result of the awesomeness of birds and nature, and so would probably leave off "ticker." When I see a cool bird I like to get a few good looks and some pictures if I can. All the other names would probably fit pretty well.

What kind of birding equipment do you use?

Up until two weeks ago I used a Subaru Legacy, (about 90% of the miles I put on that car were for birding) sadly it died I now use a bike or skateboard to go birding. I have Nikon monarch binoculars, a promaster scope and a Canon 7d with a 300mm lens.

How do you keep track of your bird observations?

I love to use eBird -- it's easy, benefits all, and is a great resource for finding new birds!

What is your favorite bird sighting and what is the story behind it? 

It is hard to narrow that down to just one so I picked the top two.

Last summer I was in the Uintas looking for ptarmigans with my little sister. It was not a good day for ptarmigan searching; there was a heavy fog so visibility was pretty low. After wandering around for quite a while and getting quite cold we caught wind of the day's first birds; a small flock of american pipits flew in and flew out, and right after they left the day got really good! About 100 small black birds landed 20-30 yards from us, this was my first great look at black rosy finches.  Conditions did not permit great photos but my sister and I got great look for about an hour. The combination of being high in the mountains, in the clouds, and having such a close experience with such beautiful and amazing birds was an unforgetable experience.

The second was the violet crowned humming bird in Patagonia, Arizona, I think that this little bird is perhaps the most amazing one I have ever seen. I spent a week down in Arizona and found about 30 lifers last August, but the violet crowned humming bird was without a doubt the most memorable.

What is your favorite backyard bird? Any good backyard birding stories or amazing backyard bird sightings you can share?

My parents live in downtown Provo and we don't really have a yard, nonetheless the yard has had some very cool birds. Every fall we have 6-8 Rufous Hummingbirds take over the feeders for a few weeks, a few years ago we had Nighthawks sleep on our phone line ever afternoon, and we have had barn swallows bug catching for hours, and we even had a Western Wood Pewee for a few days!

Which is your favorite field guide and why?

I love the Sibley field guide, the drawings are unmatched! I also have a Peterson, Nat Geo, and several other more specific guides.

Which three books from your personal birding library would you recommend to other birders?

The Sibley Field guide, The Snoring Bird (not really a bird book, it's a biography on this guy who was a collector in the early 1900s, a little slow but a great read!) Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior

Do you have any formal bird-related education background? If so, what is it?

I took the ornithology class at BYU and will eventually be doing a masters and doctorate work in ornithology.

If a fellow birder had a question about a bird, do you consider yourself an expert (or at least proficient) on any specific family of birds?

I refer to my field guides a lot but I know the field marks for most of the birds that you would see around Utah. I don't know if I am more knowledgeable in one family than another but if I had to choose one that I thought I knew the best it would likely be sparrows.

What future birding plans do you have?

Maybe when I am old I will die while birding.

Are you involved with any local or national birding organizations? If so, which ones? 

I am starting to get involved with the Utah County Bird Club but for the most part I bird alone.

What is your nemesis bird?

The Gray Jay

Any birding related pet-peeves you’d like to vent about here?

I have one huge pet peeve; it seems that for the first few months of the year, every time someone sees me with my binoculars they will say "looking for Bald Eagles?" I think bald eagles are cool and all but I have never gone out looking for bald eagles, and when I try to tell them I am looking for a rare sparrow they just nod and keep walking. There are more birds out there than bald eagles, and I would rank many of our sparrow sized birds much higher on a one to ten scale than I would a bald eagle!

Outside of birding, what are your other interests or hobbies?

I love photography; before I was a birder I was outside almost as much as I am now just looking for good pictures rather than good birds. I also love rock climbing, camping, and reading.

Any funny birding experiences you could tell us?

I hope I am not alone when I relate stories of trying to ID a plastic bag through my scope for more than 20 minutes, getting pooped on while trying to get good looks, and getting weird looks from cute girls while spishing at the bushes between classes. My girlfriend got me a great bumper sticker a few months ago "I'm not drunk I'm bird watching"

If you were a bird, which species would you be and why? 

I would be an American Avocet! The avocet is a truly amazing bird, the recurved bill the striking contrast of fiery orange, black, and white. Who doesn't want to winter in California? and how great would it be to play in the mud all day!

Total life list?    400

Most exotic place you’ve gone birding?     Jamaica

Your mission in life as birder?   photograph 700 species in the US

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Birder Profile is a regular blog segment at "Birding is Fun!" spotlighting a fellow birder.  If you are interested in sharing a little about yourself and your birding experiences, please send me an email.  Is there a birder you'd like to see featured?  Please nominate that person by sending me an e-mail too.  Enthusiasm for birding is the only prerequisite!

Fox Sparrow at my patch!

It has been a few years, since living in Arizona, when I had least seen a Fox Sparrow.  The other day at my patch along the Jordan River in Salt Lake City I was excited to discover this large chunky Interior West Slate-colored Fox Sparrow mingled with a flock of White-crowned Sparrows and Oregon Dark-eyed Juncos.  They really do look large when compared side by side with the other sparrows.  My favorite feature of the Fox Sparrow is the triangle-shaped breast markings.

I went back to the same area the next day, this time armed with my camera, and was delighted to find the Fox Sparrow still there, but this time hanging out with American Robins.  Normally it stays hunkered down in the thickest part of the underbrush, but lucky for me it flitted up to this branch for a few seconds and I just held the shutter button down and rapid-fired away.

The Fox Sparrow is reported on less the 10% of the checklists submitted to eBird in Utah during Spring and Summer (Thanks for the eBird stat correction Ryan!).  They are occasionally seen in Idaho, but I never was fortunate enough to see one there.  I saw Fox Sparrows seven times in Arizona, but hadn't yet learned to appreciate them as I was so new to birding.  Absence does indeed make the heart grown fonder.

Guest Post: Birding in Brasil

Birdchick has her NBB (Non-birding Bill) and I have my own NBB (Non-birding Brother).  Well...I have three non-birding brothers, but this one in particular was born the day before my 1st birthday robbing me of a celebration that should have been all my own.  Actually, I could take the perspective that he was my first birthday present and therefore he is to spend a life of servitude to me, or at least as my pet.  When his work was taking him to Brazil I basically forced him to do some vicarious birding for me.  As you will see from his post below it should be a law that non-birders should not be allowed to travel to exotic locations - only birders should be allowed to travel because only they truly appreciate the avifauna.  I served a LDS mission in Argentina in 1996-98 and my brother served a mission in Brazil from 1997-99, so we over-lapped a year in South America.  How cool is that that he got to go back?!  I speak Spanish and he speaks Portuguese.  The languages are similar enough that we can converse and understand each other as we make fun of the rest of the family.  My non-birding brother's writing is always good for a laugh, so enjoy!

Sometimes I get lucky and my job sends me to places that I actually want to go. Such was the case last month when I was sent to Brasilia, Brazil to do some consulting with the Brazilian Air Force air traffic controllers. The thought that immediately came to mind was of a great new place to go geocaching. I happened to be on the way to my brother's house for a free dinner when I got the call, so I was excited to share the news. His thought immediately was of a great new place to go birding. He even loaned me a book to help me identify all the amazing birds I would see. Based on the weight of the book I decided I would just try to take pictures and let him identify the birds himself. I guess he is just too lazy to do all the work for me, so here goes my attempt at identifying and writing about birds that I've seen.

The first birds I saw were pigeons

There were different colors of pigeons, some of them had spots on them. In the plaza near the the capital building there were a great number of pigeons hanging out in a rather large dovecote that was designed by world famous architect and noted communist Oscar Niemeyer.

You've heard of him right? Yeah, he's probably the coolest architect I ever learned about in my History of Brazil class.

The book lists several kinds of pigeons, but the only one I can definitely say that I saw for sure was the pombo-domestico, or rock pigeon. These pigeons are different from the common American pigeons in the following ways: they live in Brazil, and poop on statues of presidents like Juscelino Kubitschek and Getulio Vargas instead of presidents like Washington and Lincoln.

I had an afternoon free so I decided to go geocaching with the only other person I was travelling with who had heard of the sport. We decided to walk up one of the "embassy row" streets since there were some good geocache hiding woods and not much traffic.

 In the woods on either side of the street we saw several holes that we assumed must have been dug by some relative of the ground squirrel or prairie dog (whistle pig for you Idahoans), but were surprised to see some big owl eyes looking back at us when we peaked inside one.  I quickly grabbed my camera and snapped this picture of what a hole looks like immediately after the owl inside backs around the corner.

We saw more owls standing around their holes and figured that living in holes must be common for these guys, and so stopped our search for terrorist whistle pigs who were taking owls hostage.   Looking the owls up in the book showed me the coruja-buragueira, which translates to hole-owl, or "burrowing owl" for those of you that insist on using the correct names.

In the same area we also saw some birds that I identified as road runners. I saw them on the road, and I saw them running. This birding thing is pretty easy.

After returning to the book I found a picture of my Brazilian road runners under the label of Quero-Quero or Southern Lapwing. Knowing that Quero-Quero definitely does not translate to Southern Lapwing (I want-I want) I immediately lost all confidence in the book and its authors who can apparently publish whatever they want without regard to the feelings of its readers.

I had previously seen these types of birds while doing a similar job in Uruguay a few years ago. I saw them again in the street in front of the Uruguay embassy.  I assume that the Uruguayan ambassador is involved in some kind of illegal bird smuggling operation, probably hoping to usurp Brazil as the leading economic power in the region starting with it's bird population.

Another bird in the same area was a big grey one that looked like a heron. I took some excellent action shots of it flying away whenever I got close enough for a good shot.

I could see that it had gray wings, was white on the underside, and had some yellow in the tail feathers. I can, with almost no certainty, identify it as the Cocoi (or White-necked) Heron based on the map that shows them living everywhere in Brazil and the Gray Heron being a vagrant from Europe. Brazil has very little tolerance for foreign vagrants, so the Gray Heron would be a long shot.

I saw a lot of little golden birds, around my hotel and in the same stretch of woods near the embassies.

Finding the trees they were in, I saw several mud nests that looked like old fashioned ovens (or hornos as those who unfortunately speak Spanish call them).  Luckily there was a whole page of Horneros in the book to compare against. All of them look the same, so I'm going with Rufous Hornero based on the dark legs of the birds I saw disqualifying them from being Pale-legged Horneros.

As a side note, Horneros in Brazil are commonly called Johns. Little John, Pale-billed John, Adobe John, etc. If that bit of knowledge ever helps you on Jeopardy I'll expect a cut.

Hanging out with the little golden bird was this little gray bird. There are lots of little gray birds in the book, so a special prize to the person who identifies it from this picture alone--taken through the glass of the hotel lobby window.

Scroll down for your prize.

There was another bird that I saw a few times, but they were always at times when I did not have my camera with me. I asked my driver what they were called and said Perdiz was the common name. You probably wouldn't find that in any other birding book except the one specifically for Brazil, but there it was on Plate 26, the Perdiz, or Red-winged Tinamou.

Only one problem, that's not what the bird looked like. It had a dark body like a Gray Tinamou,

and a yellow head with some red on the beak like the Great Tinamou.

I assume I've discovered a new subspecies. I'll name it Perdiz-Tinamou-Rosto-de-Polhoco, which translates Clown-Faced-Tinamou-Perdiz. I'm sure Mr. Hill would be proud of my taxonomy skills. (Mr. Hill was a Biology teacher at Nampa High School in Idaho - affectionately known as Birdman Hill by the students - and he is currently the President of the Southwestern Idaho Birders Association)

Well, that's it folks, my first and probably only post about birding. I assume that I won't be invited back, based on the jealousy of getting to name my own species.

Almost forgot--here's the special prize for those who identified the little gray bird. Don't scroll down and look at it if you didn't identify it. No one is more honest than the die-hard birder. I'm sure everyone believes you when you show them your life list and "starling" is not the first bird listed.

These are pictures of some of the 15 peacocks in my backyard that poop on my deck every time that I clean it.

Birding Miscellanea

From my patch along the Jordan River in Salt Lake:  The river bends in this area and has created the steep bank shown here.  As I approached this area I could hear a Belted Kingfisher's rattle, so I worked to be more stealthy in order to get a photo of this awesome bird which has continued to eluded me.  Suddenly a Kingfisher bolted out of a hole in the dirt bank and second Kingfisher joined it in a raucous flight.  I had discovered a Belted Kingfisher nesting burrow in my patch!  I never got that Kingfisher picture, but I am excited to observe whatever I can at this nest site.  It is right next to a walking/biking trail, so I am hopeful that they are accustomed to regular passers-by.

Black-billed Magpies are prolific nest engineers.  They build a secure bed of twigs and even create a domed roof for protection from weather and predators.  It is always worthwhile to check out every Magpie nest you see. I have seen both Great Horned Owls and Long-eared Owls using old Magpie nests, often removing most of the dome roof.  Below is a Long-eared Owl I discovered nesting on a Magpie nest in my old neighborhood in the Boise foothills.  I have also seen Raccoons in winter huddled up in these Magpie-built hotels.