Morcombe's Birds of Australia

mydigitalearth.com

About this app

NB: Please note that an additional download of 325MB is required once this app has been installed. Please ensure you use a WiFi connection to prevent additional data costs.

Michael Morcombe's Field Guide to Australian Birds has been called the most comprehensive field guide to Australian birds in the market today and now it is perfectly complimented by the eGuide which features:

● Optimised controls – swipe to next or previous species, one-tap enlargement of an image and rotate the device (landscape) to enlarge an image completely (and fit the width of the screen).
● Over 3000 hi-res bird images covering over 790 bird species.
● Most bird species have a detailed distribution map showing any subspecies that occur.
● Detailed text descriptions of almost all bird species including songs and calls, measurements and breeding behaviour.
● Over 1800 carefully-selected and edited sound recordings for over 600 species. Many species are represented with multiple call examples showing the full range of vocalizations.
● The ability to compare any two images, maps, or sounds, side by side on the screen.
● The ability to filter by geographic location, so that you see only the species likely to occur in your location, and to further reduce the possibilities to usual or vagrant species in the selected area.
● A "Smart Search" that gives the ability to search by distinguishing features such as size, colour, physical features, habitat and exclude certain types of birds (eg. Passerines).
● *A basic personal species list that stores your sightings saved to the device (ability to upload list coming soon)
● A comprehensive help and introduction section to help you if you get stuck or don’t understand how a certain feature works.

* Uninstalling/reinstalling the program will result in the loss of your list, it is recommended that you keep a backup from the application (My List -> Export).

We invite all users to share their comments and ideas on our forum at www.mydigitalearth.com

Ratings and reviews

Recommended by a friend, and it doesn't disappoint with coverage of species or ease of finding the bird you're looking for. The one feature that seems arbitrarily limited is related to entering sightings. It has an entry for GPS, but you can only have it entered automatically, based on your current location. If you're like me, and typically enter sightings at the end of the day, this means you can't manually record the actual GPS coords of the sighting, only have it enter *where you are when you enter the sighting*. Pretty limited, and doesn't afford any integration with Google Maps. Add those bits of functionality and I'd go 5 starts, as it is, it gets 4.

I've loved using this app for several years now. But now I hate it. I don't know why the developers have changed a perfectly good app, but the reasons I hate it now are: 1. General appearance (colour) is gaudy. 2. It's fiddly to use now, and difficult to navigate. 3. ALL audio files for a given species have the same title, making it now a matter of trial and error as to whether I select the one I want. 4. Even if the titles of each recording did describe the call (gender, region, behaviour etc), the way they are displayed is such that only part of the first word is visible anyway... back to trial and error selection again. 5. In the "compare" mode, it's now only possible to play one recording at a time. I have often found it very useful to play two tracks simultaneously, but now can't do this. 6. I was never asked if I'd like to install the update. 7. There doesn't appear to be an option to reinstall the older, better version. I'm inclined to ask for my money back.

It is not ineffective for identifying, learning, and recording birds. However, considering the price and in light of the free app Australian Birds it leaves a lot to be desired. The UI is clucky. Smart search is not useful at all in my experience. And it is a bit painful and restricted if used as your primary bird list. However, it is nice to be able to export and save your list separately to the app. The bird calls and descriptions are useful.

What's new

* Added quick call play to indexes
* Fixed some bugs