Appy Birding

Appy Birding - apps to help you help our wildlife!

By Claire Duncan

Fig. 1 Greylag Geese at an urban park

 

The 21^st century is an exciting time of huge growth, and huge ‘greening’.  The internet generation use technology that last century’s Sci-fi writers barely dreamed of, yet are more environmentally aware than almost any before. Ecologists and other scientists not only have greater potential to gather knowledge, but to distribute it through society. Exciting things going on at the moment include drones surveying tree bryophytes, satellite tracking for migrating animals and some nifty software for much of the hideous maths that’s part of our trade. And also apps. Common or garden smartphones can be installed with a myriad of them, with plant ID, stargazing and bushcraft tuition all popular. One of my personal favourites is one created by an old established conservation NGO founded back in 1930s Oxford.

The British Trust for Ornithology, or BTO, is an unusual environmental organisation. It is a scientific body whose impartiality and professionalism earn it respect at all levels. Focused on monitoring and research, it is a source of good, sound science which anyone can access. An absolute godsend in my college days! It doesn’t engage in lobbying, or own any reserves, but the information it collects provide vital information for those who do.  As birdwatching has long been a popular hobby here, the BTO soon realised there were reams of information sat in dog-eared notebooks across the country. If this could be gathered together, a clear picture of the UK’s birdlife would emerge, that would otherwise have cost thousands. So, people would send in their findings, by paper or electronic means. It wasn’t really a huge leap to think of something like BirdTrack.

 

Fig. 2 BirdTrack, A BTO project looks at migration and distribution patterns of birds throughout Britain and Ireland. (BTO, not dated)

 

I first heard of BirdTrack at an event hosted by the Snowdonia Society, a small Welsh conservation NGO. As the BTO’s Welsh headquarters are based at the nearby University of Bangor, regional development officer Kelvin Jones was able to give a presentation. There seemed endless ways to get involved, from claiming a ‘patch’ to regularly survey, to chipping in a few hours birdwatching at peak migration times.  One of the easiest, however, is setting up a BirdTrack account. Similar to schemes such as Hedgelink or The Wildlife Trusts’ Wildlife Watchers, this lets you upload online anything you may have spotted. 

Birds can be entered as ‘List’ or ‘Casual sighting’. List is all number and species of bird seen in a certain time at a certain place. Casual sighting would be more for a one off thing you spotted while dashing for work or out of a car window. Your online account will let you view your details,  how things are going with a set ‘species of the day’, and also shows the top 5 other users for lists and top 5 for species. Since humans are an innately competitive species, the BTO have worked out that this can spur some people on.  Once set up, you can then choose to link your account to the BirdTrack App.

Once on your phone, the BirdTrack app can be treated pretty much as a notebook. The time, date, place and species sighted are entered. There are also options to submit any evidence of breeding or anything else noteworthy, behavioural or otherwise. This bit doesn’t require wifi, which means you can use it anywhere without it devouring your data. Wifi is needed to send the data off later though. The app will first check to see if any bits are missing, before sending your research straight to the number crunchers at the BTO’s Thetford headquarters.

Fig. 3 BirdTrack app is easy to navigate, a vital tool for any birders out there

 

 Species must be selected from those listed, so ‘Owl’ ‘Duck’ or ‘Seagull Mafia boss’ won’t make the grade. Due to the huge amount of data that can be collected this way, downright daft entries won’t skew the final calculations, either. But the whole thing is an incredibly user-friendly bit of software.

Another plus side of spontaneous citizen involvement is that rather than just the exciting species spotted on special birding trips, data can be gathered on the somewhat boring, everyday species. Why are goldfinches getting more common in towns, while swifts are declining? How would the closure of a nearby landfill affect local gull populations? Has there been any difference in sparrow or blackbird numbers in the last few decades? Are things nesting any earlier as the climate changes? If a likely species list for you consists of 8 sparrows and a woodpigeon, then that’s still a useful finding.

Likewise, the fact it can be done anywhere allows great flexibility. I like to sit in bed and count what flies past or lands in the car park outside our window in the morning. There are tales of housebound, elderly or disabled people surveying their back garden at the same time every morning. You don’t even need to put any trousers on! Naturally, surveying the same time and place repeatedly will allow you a better picture of it. Ecologists are ‘Pattern seekers, and pattern explainers’, so working  out  trends or tendencies for something is considered a success.

So get your smartphones, or at least an online account and suitable notebook, and take a stroll! From teenage blackbirds squabbling with would-be stepmums over their overworked dads (I actually spotted this by our Uni halls one time.  Poor fella...) to a few hundred geese arriving at your local lake at once in Autumn. From noisy broods of sparrows growing up in your hedge to the joys of a night-singing robin. There’s so much to be discovered and there’s never been a better time to get involved. Get it down and let people know about it!