Costa Rica Birds Fieldguide

Crashes on my phone and tablet. Doesn't work at all. Used to work really well

Doesn't work. Crashes every time I try to use it.

This app is pretty bad. It's a shame that the data is there, but looks like they have not invested the time or thought into making the interface useful. Not sortable by taxonomy, there are filters but of odd things . It's a database of Costa Rica birds, but not a useful field guide. I am a serious birder and use lot's of different print, app and online guides for North American birds. This is the worst I have seen. I wish I had more positive things to say. Not sure what the other reviewers are talking about. Maybe I am missing something.

Great help in the field. Saves carrying heavy bird books. Easy to use and had just about everything we needed.

Very handy saves carrying a heavy book everywhere.

Make no mistake, if you want an app for Costa Rican birds, this is what you should get. To be clear, however, I noticed quite a few bugs in the two days so far that I have owned it. One thing I noticed is people said you can't filter by taxonomic order -- this isn't true, it is quite easy to. Not sure if there was an update since those reviews or what. There is a bug, though, that when you do quite a few birds disappear from the database. The audio is the reason I got the app but it is rather buggy. Sometimes it won't stop playing when you click the audio button again, sometimes it will. Sometimes it keeps playing until you close the app. Even with these bugs it works well enough to be worth $10. Definitely to be used along with a field guide.

The app doesn't have a proper general index for families (common or scientific). You'll have to do lengthy input search instead of jumping directly to the kind of bird you know you have seen (e.g. ducks). It has a convoluted user log of observations, based on a static world view ignoring impacts of global warming - i.e. species options for adaptation are to seek higher latitude, higher altitude or quickly evolve (most can't). For instance, birds we now find at higher altitudes cannot be logged by the app. You're much better off using Merlin from Cornell Lab.

Brilliant app, there is no doubt it will be very useful in the field, and fantastic value for money. Photos are mostly very good and the calls for the majority of species are an added bonus. Thanks for this super app!

You can see multiple pictures of each bird. They are categorised for easy identification and all for a fraction of the price of the book field guides. Great app!!

Not perfect, but very useful and good value.

Crashes every time I click a bird. Note 5

This app is a work in progress. The good news is that it seems to be progressing rapidly. The recent update from version 9 to version 10 is a big improvement in coverage of species, and fixes a bug or two. This is a great portable resource for $10. If you are going to Costa Rica for some serious birding, this is a great study guide with the audio component, but will need to be paired with a standard field guide for complete coverage and detail. The app relies on photos, and is currently missing photos for some of the rarer or more furtive species. This should be filled in later. For most species with distinct male/female/immature plumages, the app does not yet provide full coverage. In many cases, rainforest species are show with photos that are dimly lit, which is difficult for ID purposes, but could be more realistic for in-the-field comparisons. Sometimes the multiple photos for a species are simply the same individual bird in several poses, which is useful, but maybe not what would be expected. At the moment, size descriptions are limited to classes (small, medium, large, etc.), not specific measurements. Audio recordings are generally excellent, with a high level of coverage.

This app doesn't have any of the birds I saw in Arenal / Fortuna and seems to be all American birds, not specific to Costa Rica. I want a refund.

Some of the pictures are nearly useless for identifications, and most birds don't have sound recordings, but the filter function is well-designed. My biggest wish is that I could create a checklist within the app. Currently all you can do is email yourself sightings one species at a time. This is idiotic. I want to create a list (date, location, desc), add birds to it, and then export all at once when the outing is complete.

A great app to take in the field. Used it for 8 days.