Birds of the Western Palearctic app for iOS
My first reaction on opening up the brand-new Birds of the Western Palearctic app on my iPad was to appreciate just how much work must have gone into formulating this iconic tome into its latest format.
It's more than 15 years since the BWPi DVD-ROM was released, and a lot has changed since then. Taxonomy, for starters – many 'new' species have popped up, while a lesser number have been lumped. Then there's the ever-changing fluxes of population and distribution to address. The amount of effort required simply to get this monumental vat of information updated to reflect the state of play in 2020 would be enough to put most off even trying. Not the NatureGuides team, though – their knowledge, dedication and sheer bloody-mindedness has whipped it into shape to please even the most contemporary of birders.
Where to start? The home screen seems logical. Stylishly presented and adorned with a Streaked Scrub Warbler, the new app, its features and its aims are introduced. The text offers a reminder of the efforts invested – new sounds, new videos, thousands of photos, updated accounts on top of the existing 5 million words of text that have been sifted through and repurposed. Also included is the original introduction from BWP itself. The overall layout will be familiar to anyone who uses the Collins Bird Guide app.
And, briefly, some statistics to digest: 1,014 species are covered, of which 880 include video footage. With almost 5,500 illustrations, 1,600 line drawings, 300 life cycle diagrams, 2,500 tables and 616 distribution maps, there's plenty to go at here!
Access to the species accounts is provided via a collapsible sidebar on the left side of the screen. Species are presented family by family in taxonomic order, from Wildfowl to New World Blackbirds. Tapping on a family takes you to the list of species within – and it is from here that you can begin to explore the goldmine of knowledge that is BWP.
Tapping on a species brings up the account in full. First come the illustrations – largely recognisable from the original books but with numerous additions. These are scrollable, left to right, or you can tap on the thumbnails to bring up the required artwork.
Example screenshots from an iPhone.
An obvious benefit of digital content is the ability to include additional features that a traditional book simply cannot accommodate. Sounds, videos and images are awash where they were naturally absent in the book. Immediately below the illustrations sit relevant sound recordings for each species. These play instantly on tapping the button. Some species (less vocal birds, such as waterbirds or raptors) may only have one (or even no) recording, while others have several different calls and songs available to listen to. Something I'd never heard before was the muffled glug-glug of Cinereous Vulture chicks, and no doubt there are plenty of similar surprises hidden away within this production. A feature of the app on iPad (but not iPhone) is Species Comparison, accessed via the cog icon in the top right corner of the screen. This allows you to compare two species side by side, something you can't do with a book unless you want to take it apart. Very handy.
Then follows the real meat of BWP: the accounts. These include everything you would expect from the books: Introduction, Field Characters, Habitat, Population, Movements, Moults, Measurements and so on, plus distribution maps and annual cycle diagrams. Handily included in the Breeding section are instructive and informative images of habitat, nests, eggs and young chicks, these from the popular Breeding Birds of the Western Palearctic DVD-ROM. Another nice touch is the link to the Collins Bird Guide app included at the end of each account – a feature users of the BirdGuides app on iOS will already be familiar with. A Videos section includes high-quality and relevant footage for many species, although note that videos are streamed and thus being connected to Wi-Fi is recommended if you want to watch them.
In terms of taxonomy, many of the more recent splits are presented within the 'old' species – for example, Hudsonian Whimbrel is still retained within Whimbrel, although a distinctive pale gold box in the introduction clearly references that hudsonicus is now treated as a full species. Similarly, White-winged and Stejneger's Scoters are both to be found in the Velvet Scoter species account, where illustrations of both can be found and, as with Whimbrel, a box in the introduction outlines the split. Searching for 'Stejneger's' brings up Velvet Scoter (and indeed European Stonechat, within which both Siberian and Stejneger's Stonechat are included), which will encourage the user to explore these accounts for details on the rarer congeners.
Others have been furnished with their own species accounts. An example of this is Balearic Warbler, which is searchable in its own right and, as per the app, the new account is "based on material extracted from Marmora's Warbler in BWP … supplemented by more recent information". Presumably other recent splits will eventually be afforded the same treatment. NatureGuides does state "we will be issuing updates regularly" in the app's introduction – this being another great benefit of a digital resource like this, in that it can be easily tweaked and updated to make it even better going forwards. The great joy of this is that you don't have to purchase another set of weighty books.
Much of the text is reproduced from the original tome and has not (yet!) been updated, so there's no doubt that close exploration will reveal it to be a little dated in parts. This might include population data – such as for the rapidly declining European Turtle Dove, although this is recognised with one of the now-familiar golden update boxes pointing out that "population and distribution data for this species has changed significantly" – or the status of vagrants – the most recent listed record of Hudsonian Godwit is in the mid-'80s, for example. But that shouldn't detract from the fact that a great majority of the content remains not just relevant but hugely important to modern birders and ornithologists alike.
Given the layout, graphics and other features, I think it's fair to say that this is an app that is best utilised on an iPad, where the larger screen gives it chance to 'breathe' and look its very best. Given its 3.2 GB size, you'll need a hefty chunk of memory free on your device, too – compare this to the relatively minor 1.1 GB needed for the Collins Bird Guide app. That said, it's really amazing to think conceptually that BWP now fits into your pocket and can be used as an immediate resource, wherever you are. Who'd have imagined that a decade ago?
All in all, this is a genuinely phenomenal resource. Many will have no doubt been hoping that, after the publication of the Collins Bird Guide app in 2014, an app for Birds of the Western Palearctic might follow – and now it is here. Retailing at the stunningly reasonable price of £34.99, this app is making a hefty and expensive set of books, which to this day cost hundreds of pounds, entirely accessible and affordable. It is a brilliantly produced, real leviathan of an app and will deservedly become a firm favourite with birders worldwide, and not just within the treated region.
Screenshots (iPad)
Introduction page.
Example species account: Red-throated Diver.
Example species account: Eurasian Hobby.
