Nature Lister
A recording app as opposed to an identification app, although it does provide Internet search options from a species. It also handles Butterflies, Plants etc.
Please see my detailed review below, I'm still using it very happily!
Regards,
Graham.
Nature Lister version 1.1.249 (18th March 2012)
Nature Lister is an Android mobile phone application that allows the capture of species sighting data and optional GPS information in the field. It comes with pre-defined lists of UK Birds, butterflies, moths, dragonflies, plants and mammal species, and guidelines are published allowing the user to define their own species lists. A pre-defined list of major UK locations is supplied and other surveyed locations can be pre-defined or entered in the field. Field trip reports can be generated and sent by email, there is also an offline batch interface to the BTO Birdtrack system. Nature Lister costs £19.50 a copy, supply is direct from
www.wildlife.co.uk.
Ease of use and features
A very helpful user guide is supplied, but I found that I could start to use the application without it.
With species and sites pre-defined, the starting point for using Nature Lister is adding a trip, and starting to record the species seen. Adding a trip simply requires selecting the visited location from a drop-down list, the list appearing after the first two letters of the location name are typed. At this point you can add optional weather details, trip comments and request a GPS reading. GPS locations appear accurate, although they can take a while to appear if the mobile phone has been restricted to 2G network operation. The keypad used can be switched between QWERTY, 3x4 and Handwriting box. A voice recognition option is also available if 3G network operation is switched on.
Once the trip details have been saved the species list appears. This is in a pre-defined systematic order, the application recalling the last species list used. Very short species lists can be scrolled through, but there are also three search options offered - name starting with, name contains and search by a short code. The text size within the species list itself is also configurable. Once the desired species has been found it can simply be ticked as present, or additional tailored information about number seen, breeding status and gender can be added. You can also switch species list at any point during a trip, a feature that provides very flexible species recording in the field, and change GPS starting a new trip and species list.
Completed trips can be reported as an HTM file. Reports can be filtered by date range, species list (current or all) and basic geographical location (site, county, state and country). Trip reports can be emailed to a pre-defined recipient or stored on the mobile phone. Another extremely useful output feature is the option to create CSV files from a selected species list. These are designed for import into Birdtrack, but if you do need to add a bird club observer name then you must modify the file before import. The basic record information produced can be readily re-formatted for import to applications such as Recorder. Species records can also be displayed on your mobile phone via Google Maps, a feature that I have found occasionally useful in working out how many bird territories I’m dealing with in an area of woodland.
Effectiveness
I’ve been using Nature Lister for a month now and I haven’t resorted to my old notebook during that period. Use during that period has included capturing 23 bird species lists and 50 casual records (birds, amphibians and plants). This has included two full blown breeding bird surveys and a WEBS count. The application appears to be very stable on my Samsung Galaxy S2, and even survived me inadvertently switching my phone of while I was using it without losing any data. It’s also helped me improve data quality by automatically capturing sighting times, where I am often remiss, and adding GPS readings for scarcer species at large locations. It works well with my clunky fingers, but I’ve also bought and used a stylus for cold weather use.
Help and Support
Wildlife Computing provide excellent help and support by email.
Summary
A good application and well worth the money, it’s now part of my way of working.