Explore useful birding tools and resources.
iNaturalist
iNaturalist is platform to upload observations of all kinds of life. It hosts powerful image recognition technology and allows users to submit identifications on each other’s observations, resulting in a rich biodiversity database.
If you’re passionate about citizen science, iNaturalist a great way to contribute data to scientific research!
Several projects on iNaturalist track the birds on campus and Philadelphia:
- Bird Aware Penn
- Penn Bird Strikes
- Philly Bird Strikes Project
- Bird Safe Philly Bird Strikes Project
- Bird Safe Philly - OFFICIAL Bird Collision Monitoring Project
Seek
Seek by iNaturalist is another way to identify the species around you with a simple point of the Seek Camera. Its image recognition is powered by iNaturalist and it has additional gamified features like achievements, badges and challenges.
Unlike iNaturalist, there is no registration and observations remain on your device.
Cornell Lab
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology hosts many valuable birding resources!
They host the Macaulay Library, a wildlife media archive, and Living Bird, their quarterly member magazine.
All About Birds
All About Birds is an online guide with a large selection of bird species. It includes habitat ranges, behavior, high-quality identification photos, and sound recordings. If you’re stuck on an identification, you can even compare with similar species and get useful tips to tell them apart.
eBird
eBird collects bird sightings from around the world, allowing birders to share their trips and findings. The data you contribute helps to inform conservation decisions and scientific research.
We regularly use eBird to track our outings, and anyone with an eBird account can contribute to our lists.
Merlin Bird ID
The Merlin app allows you to indentify birds on the go with Sound ID, Photo ID, or a questionnaire. Powered by eBird, you can save the birds you have seen, build custom lists, and filter by location or time of year.
BirdNET
BirdNET is an analytical AI specialized for sound identification, much like Merlin’s Sound ID. Besides the official app by the Cornell Lab, which processes audio recordings on their servers, it run on a variety of hardware or through a different client app.