Some Notes on Testing the Birding App for Costa Rica in the Field

I came back from a great weekend of guiding in the Dominical area. Lots of great birding down that way even though the area isn’t a main stop on most birding tours to Costa Rica.

On this recent trip, highlights included 16 species of raptors, Yellow-bellied and Ruddy-breasted Seedeaters, Black-tailed Flycatcher, and Mangrove Hummingbird. It was a rather casual trip so I’m sure that more would have been seen with more time in the field.

It was nice to see birds like this female Cherrie’s Tanager come down to bathe in a stream at the Villas Rio Mar Hotel.

A few female Blue-crowned Manakins also visited the stream.

The trip also gave me a chance to test the app while birding. Here are a few things I noted:

• Quick in finding birds by name: I found myself scrolling to birds in a matter of seconds even when the bird in question was a Yellow-crowned Euphonia way down there at the bottom of the list.
• Finding birds by their group was also nice: This was a quick way to see all the birds in a group and when I also touched “range”, I could see which ones belonged in the area.
• Identifying bird songs: Although we have a search filter for bird vocalizations, it’s easier to find a song if you already know what group it belongs to. For example, if I hear something that sounds like a trogon, I just search for the trogon group and take a quick listen to their songs. Figuring out which search parameters to include in the filter for the amazing variety of bird vocalizations in Costa Rica is a major challenge and is something we will be improving and updating. However, it becomes easier when you combine song searches with range.
• Notes: It’s a quick and easy way to mark a bird as seen or heard to check later on. Quick notes can also be included and with our most recent update, those notes can also be deleted. I used the notes to mark down my new birds for the year.

Have you tested the app in the field? Please let us know what you liked and didn’t like in the comments. Know that your input will help us improve and fine tune the app because we do so based on the experiences of our customers.