Scottish Ornithologists’ Club free mobile app
Available from www.the-soc.org.uk/about-us/app
When birdwatching in pastures new, the traditional approach is to use a ‘Where to watch birds in…’ book. Such guides have been produced for most counties and regions in the UK (notably the series produced by Helm and Buckingham Press). Although useful when new, sooner or later they become out of date. How wonderful it would be to have a more interactive tool in your pocket, which includes up-to-date site directions and recent sightings.
Birders in Scotland can now have just that – thanks to an innovative new app produced by the SOC (Scottish Ornithologists’ Club) and available across all mobile platforms. It is designed to use one of the main resources of the Club – a membership of over 3,300 – and to give something back to the birding community. The ‘Where to Watch Birds in Scotland’ app has been conceived and compiled by a small team of SOC members led by Martin Cook and Alan Knox, together with Jane Allison, the SOC’s Development Officer. Across the country, local birders have been persuaded to share their expertise and knowledge of local sites, together with other relevant information, all in a succinct prescribed format.
And the result? Well, it’s brilliant; quite simply, anyone interested in birds and birding in Scotland should download the app (it’s free) and start (virtual) exploring. On opening the app, the user is presented with a map showing all the available sites (see fig. 1) – all 400 of them (thereabouts). You can zoom in to sites near your location (which is shown if you have GPS turned on) or just explore an area of interest. The map shows that there are a few areas of Scotland that are less well covered – the Outer Hebrides, the far north of the mainland and the central parts of Highland region – and the intention is to fill in these areas as resources permit. But the well-watched areas of the central belt, the east and west coasts and the northern isles are all well represented, and the intention is to keep the information updated regularly.
Selecting a pin on the map gives you the site name and choosing that leads you to the details, which include a map, best seasons to visit, an overview of the site and a number of locations within the site, each with a description of access and the birds likely to be seen, and when. The strength of this app is that these sections are prepared by local birders who know the site and how to work it. You can get directions to the site from your current location, and you can submit your own sightings using a link to BirdTrack or via e-mail to the SOC (although I wonder if these e-mails would more usefully be sent directly to the relevant local recorder). A particular strength is the link to recent BirdTrack sightings, so at any time you can see what other birders have reported within a 2-km radius of the site within the last ten days. There can be some overlap with neighbouring sites so care needs to be taken – the information should be used as an indication only. (Note that recent news submitted to the national bird news services won’t appear unless the records have also been added to BirdTrack.)
Other icons at the bottom of the map screen allow for access to sites, species or favourites. Sites are listed alphabetically with a search function. The ‘species’ icon provides a link to a list of species (also in alphabetical sequence) and a distribution map (with population estimates where appropriate) from the acclaimed Birds in Scotland (Forrester et al. 2007). If the app is being used with a phone signal or Wi-Fi, a species enquiry will also show a map of all the sites where that species is mentioned, helping you to locate places to go and see that bird.
I tried out a few sites I know and others I have never been to, and could not fault the information. The presentation is simple and concise, and I think I have seen the future of bird-finding guides. The software behind this app was designed to be transferable to other areas, not just the UK, and for other taxa, with minimal development work. I hope that we will see similar applications being developed and used in the future.
Mark Holling
