

Show HN: Birds Near Me – Birding with citizen science - gerry_shaw
http://birdsnearme.com

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smackay
What a great idea. It sits quite well in the spot of giving people with a
passing interest in birds, and nature in general, quite a decent amount of
information. It might even be a gateway app, transforming casual users into
full-time birders.

What I think might be missing is some form of call to action where people
could engage with local groups or NGOs to find out about organized field trips
and other events that would better inform people about a range of conservation
issues and make them more aware of the world around them.

The work that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is doing is pretty interesting.
There are many online databases for recording bird sightings but as far as I
know eBird is the only one with a strong focus on data quality and monitored
by network of local volunteers that work as curators and moderators. They are
also leaders in making the data open through their API which is generating a
lot of useful projects and ideas.

[http://ebird.org/content/ebird/](http://ebird.org/content/ebird/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBird)

[https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/CLOISAPI/eBird+API+1....](https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/CLOISAPI/eBird+API+1.1)

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gerry_shaw
Thanks for the compliment. This is just the 1.0 MVP release. I've got a number
of ideas on the roadmap.

My intention was to build a birding app for the casual birder. Birds Eye
covers the hard core birder market, I wanted something more approachable.

eBird is really great. It's amazing that it's been running for 10 years. It's
really caught on in North America. I'm hoping with this app we will start to
get more data around the world (localization is scheduled for the 1.1 release
:)

~~~
smackay
I think there's a decent amount of latent interest in the environment in
general and birds in particular since they are probably the most visible. The
hard part is getting from somewhat interested to quite interested - that would
make a big difference in environment issues - but that's hard to do unless you
find out about local birds clubs, etc. which are really targeted at the
serious/obsessed birder. Cornell do a reasonable job of engaging people's
interest and the data available on eBird should help.

eBird adoption is growing here in Portugal - the main advantage is the
moderation which is useful in keeping out the, shall we say, less reliable
observations. As a result we see a decline in the use of other databases as
people move to eBird.

I use the eBird API for www.birdinglisboa.com which provides a news service
for birders in the Lisbon area.</shameless plug>

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hhandoko
Nice! Is it open source?

FYI, me and three others developed one for plants as part of GovHack hackathon
[1]. The information is sourced from Atlas of Living Australia database.

One of these days, I'll pick up the code and complete it :) Very time poor
right now, unfortunately.

[1] - [https://github.com/govhack-botaniser](https://github.com/govhack-
botaniser)

~~~
gerry_shaw
Thanks! It's not open source at this time. I'm running it as a bit of an
experiment and as a way to give back to all the people that have contributed
in many ways (data, pictures, recordings, libraries) etc...

I had the initial version working in a couple of weeks and was using it quite
a bit. It does take a lot of effort to finish all the loose ends. Hopefully
you'll finish yours as well.

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heuermh
Very cool, thanks for sharing.

I would like something similar for Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) to
help with our local surveys

[http://www.mndragonfly.org](http://www.mndragonfly.org)

There is a nice Odonata website/database, but it doesn't have API support like
eBirds does

[http://www.odonatacentral.org/index.php/PageAction.get/name/...](http://www.odonatacentral.org/index.php/PageAction.get/name/HomePage)

I've been meaning to build such an app but it hasn't made it to the top of my
todo list yet.

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vitoreiji
I second hhandoko's question: is it open source? Or better yet, is it FLOSS?
Also, is an Android version coming anytime soon?

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gerry_shaw
It isn't open source but it will remain free. There is a similar Android app
called Birds Around Me [1] that is very similar. I have no plans to implement
on other devices. This is just a hobby. Ironically found after I built most of
this app.

[1]:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sobremesa....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sobremesa.birdwatching&hl=en)

~~~
vitoreiji
Yeah, I saw that on your support site after I asked. Sorry for not checking
before, but thanks for answering!

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snarkyturtle
I bet many people from the UK wouldn't click on this link since they'd think
it's another crappy dating site.

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phaemon
I dunno, "Birding with citizen science" might be quite an _interesting_ dating
site...

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acomjean
eBird is pretty much the definitive siting database. Interesting that its
leveraging it. I'll try it out (maybe find some more birds for my flickr
(which is inself a bad bird pun).

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/acomjean](https://www.flickr.com/photos/acomjean)

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ErikRogneby
how does this compare to Birdseye? [1]

[1] [http://www.birdseyebirding.com/](http://www.birdseyebirding.com/)

~~~
gerry_shaw
BirdsEye has a dedicated database so it can provide more accurate
distributions but its limited to North America (there are other regions).
BirdsEye is also a paid product.

If you are serious about birding it's worth checking out but poor UI IMO was
the primary motivation for me to build this app.

