Features

blueBill Mobile aims at becoming the field tool for birdwatcher, offering an unique approach that makes it different from other similar applications for smartphones. We'd like to share with you the key principles that are driving its design (most of those are available now, the others will be delivered with the July update):

1. Completeness.  blueBill Mobile provides both tools for recording geotagged observations and identification support facilities, such as multi-media fact sheets.
2. Openness. Unlike other similar projects that are managed by publishers and provide their own portfolios of media, blueBill Mobile is free and open, thus it can access resources available in the Web with an open license. Of course, we chose to provide media vetted by reputable resource providers, such as birding associations, so you can enjoy valuable data. This approach means a big and potentially unlimited set of resources available to you - for free.
3. Integration. Observation data can be used in a number of ways, from personal archival to sharing with friends and storing to databases managed by ornithology associations. blueBill Mobile aims at providing support for all these targets.
4. Internationalization. blueBill Mobile wants to be a citizen of the world, by providing information in as many languages as possible. Today english, italian and french are already available; more are coming (if you speak another language, you can help us with the translation).
5. Localization. blueBill Mobile aims at providing information with some added value for your local reality; for instance a “birdline call” feature to quickly notify rarities to your birdwatching association or tools for cooperating with your friends.

Please be aware that a big deal of the success of an open software relies on the collaboration from users - so, please get in touch with us and provide feedback. Below you can find a short list of what is already available in the downloadable version.

 

Take your notes quickly. Write down your bird observations quickly and precisely, with just a few keystrokes. blueBill Mobile lets you browse through a checklist (*) with a set of smart filters, or by browsing the taxonomy by order / family / genus and species.

Geotag. blueBill Mobile automatically geotags your observations annotating them if you have a GPS-capable equipment. It also finds out the name of your current place if you have a working networking connection.

Multiple languages. In every screen of blueBlll Mobile bird species can be rendered with or without the scientific name and up to two languages (**) - a valuable tool for journeys abroad. Selection and browsing supports multiple languages too.

Share your data. Sharing your observations (***), even in real-time, is a matter of seconds. Choose whether you want to send to a fellow birder by email, SMS or Facebook (on smartphones featuring FaceBook integration).

Bird songs. blueBill Mobile gives access to the recording database of xeno-canto: about 19,000 calls from about 2,300 species, with information about the date and the place of recording, will help you in the identification on the field.

Integrate. blueBill Mobile exports data in KML format: look at your geotagged observations with Google Earth or other geographic applications. More export formats will come, to give your data ever more freedom and integration capabilities.

Privacy. blueBill Mobile has got a strong committment about your privacy: your data stays on your smartphone unless you decide to share them. It doesn't even try to connect to the internet unless you explicitly enable it. This is also great for keeping telephony costs under control. And since blueBill Mobile source code is publicly available, you have the guarantee that there is no spyware inside.

 

 

* Checklists for the Western Palearctic ecozone , North America and Southern Africa.
** For the Western Palearctic Ecozone species names are fully available in english and italian languages; 90% of names also available in danish, german, spanish, finnish, french, dutch, norvegian and swedish. For North America, species names are fully available in english and french. For Southern Africa, species names are fully available in english, german and afrikaans.
*** Share your data responsibily: protect your feathered friends! Check out good sharing policies with your local birdwatching organisations.