Which are the best birding apps? (For iPad, US) (1 Viewer)

Hello - this is my first time submitting a new thread on this forum, so I hope I'm putting it in the right place.

I have an iPad, and I'd like to download some birding apps. However there are a lot - an awful lot - of birding apps out there to choose from - some free, some not. I'm having a hard time trying to decide which ones are the best. Right now I have the iBird Lite and Peterson Feeder Birds of North America apps. I'm a beginner to birding, so I'd also like one that is easy to use in that respect. I'm not against spending money on a birding app, as long as it's a good one, but I would like to know how efficient it is before I purchase it.

Any tips on what you'd consider the best birding app(s) for someone living in the US?

Peterson's Birds of North America and iBird are the two I have and I like them a lot!

Hi there and a warm welcome to you from those of us on staff here at BirdForum :t:

The Sibley app is my favorite (and I have them all).

For showing you images of birds and with sounds available for most, I like the Sibley guide I have on my ipad mini. There is an ebird app for entering observations and submitting them online to Ebird - if that is the one you have or one that needs a little money, I cannot say, because I have not (at least yet) gone that way.

Any other uses of a birding app you would like? maybe there is one out there

Niels

Waite's Guide to Birds of America. The new High Def version and the iPad mini are a perfect compliment. Much improved UI over the iBird Pro, which I have on Android, iPhone and iPad mini.

Peterson Birds was on sale a couple of weeks ago. Might be worth checking to see if this is still the case.

Rich

The Windows platforms has 2 options for you to consider:

1- Sibleys Birds of N. America.
http://www.sibleyguides.com/about/the-sibley-eguide-to-birds-app/

2- RareBirder - which works wherever eBird observations are submitted:
http://www.pkzsoftware.com/Pages/RareBirder.aspx

I have most of the apps, and for identification of birds the two I use the most are Sibley's and Audubon's. One of the features unique to Sibley's that I find very useful is the ability to compare two species side by side. The Audubon's is a nice compliment to Sibley's because it has photographs instead of drawings. In addition many of Audubon's maps show the winter location of some migrating birds in Central or South America. One other feature of Audubon's that can be very useful is the ability to locate recently seen species by tapping into eBird.

I recently purchased the National Geographic app, and it is very good, and contains more vagrants than the two above. There are also some apps that are excellent and focus only on shorebirds or raptors. And finally as you get more into birding and want to start recording your sightings the BirdLog apps are great, and will allow you to send your reports directly to eBird once you have established an account.

All the Waites guides are very very good. Download the free trial app before purchasing. You will not be dissapointed.