Introduction to the Best Birdwatching Apps in Australia
In the modern technological era, birdwatching in Australia has been made even more accessible and fun through handy apps and online guides through your smartphone. These make everything from identifying birds, tracking and sharing sightings with other birders, to learning more about bird species, substantially easier.
| Features | Birda | Birdly | Pizzey & Knight Birds of Australia | Morcombe & Stewart Guide | Aussie Bird Count | Stewart Australian Bird Calls |
| Community | ✔ | |||||
| Field Guide | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Log Birds | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Find Birds | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| AI Photo ID | ✔ | |||||
| HI Photo ID | ✔ | |||||
| Bird Calls | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Multi Taxonomy | ✔ | |||||
| Global | ✔ | |||||
| App Store Rating | 4.3 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 3.7 | 4.8 |
We’ve compiled the best birding apps for bird identification, bird song, bird lists and sightings in Australia, like the Birda app, so keep reading for the best apps on the market!
One of the best birdwatching apps in Australia is Birda. Birda is a birding social app that turns the discovery and exploration of birdlife and the outdoors into a game by using challenges, leaderboards and fun badges.
Birda’s design is sleek and clean, and makes identifying and logging birds a breeze. Birda’s stand out feature, aside from its bird identification features, is its emphasis on community.
Not only is majority of the Birda app free, it is focused on conservation and shares sightings with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). It also promotes creating healthy habits, getting outside into nature and a little bit of fun competition too. Think Strava meets Pokemon Go, but for birdwatching!
What makes Birda the best birdwatching apps in Australia is it has the capabilities to help you Plan your birding, Record and ID your birds, and Reflect on your birding.
Plan your Birding;
There are two main features you can use to plan your next birding trip. Challenges and Locations; Challenges are a great way to encourage you outside and create a healthy habit of getting back into nature, and find new places to go birding with the help of Birda Locations.
Record your Birding;
Recording your birds is a great way to keep track and look back on your birding. You can log your one-off sightings or a larger active session where you can track every bird you see on a walk, in a bird-hide or in your garden. Birda’s integrated free Species Guide really helps you ID your birds and makes your birding more streamlined with a single press of a button.
Easily identify Birds
Having trouble with bird identification? Birda is the app for you! Simply log your bird as ‘Unidentified’, attach a picture and description, and sit back to let other birders anonymously help identify your bird. It’s that simple!
Birda uses Human Intelligence (HI) instead of Artificial Intelligence (AI) when birders ask for help. Improve your bird ID skills further and delve into the comments where birders give helpful tips and tricks for next time.
Reflect on your Birding;
Birda is all about community. Seeing where other people have gone birding, what they could have seen and who has liked your posts on Birda. Birda also automatically logs your lists; Global, Home and Patch Lists, where you can peruse your birding achievements and filter by Year, Month and Photographed! Reflecting on your birding also gives you such a sense of progress!
Adding your pictures to Birda also helps you reflect on what you’ve seen too. If you’re interested in starting your photography journey, read about the Best Cameras for Bird Photography here.
Each sighting you log helps scientific research. The GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) could use sightings in research for species distribution! What a great app to be part of!
Stand out features of Birda
- Great Free and Premium features
- Available on both Android and Apple
- Choose your preferred taxonomy
- Intergrated Species Guide
- Localised species list
- Import sightings from other apps
- Lists are auto-generated
- Keep track of your health metrics; time in nature, days wild etc
- Use Birda offline
- Fine-grained privacy controls
Try Birda, it's FREE
2. Birdly - Birdlife Australia
Finally, Birdly is a fantastic choice for birding in Australia. Birdly is AI-powered and houses an array of modern features. It can be used to identify birds with startling accuracy and can show 3D modelling, illustrations, maps and more. It’s been developed by BirdLife Australia so it has official backing and therefore also promotes awareness and support for conservation efforts in Australia.
It’s a free app but offers additional features with the premium version (these include quizzes, checklists and offline functionality). It doesn’t hold the best sound recognition features but its image recognition is state of the art.
3. Pizzey & Knight Birds Of Australia
Pizzey and Knight Birds of Australia is both a field guide and a life-list logger. It’s similar to Sibley Bird ID, an American Bird Guide in that there’s both an online/app version and a printed version. The guide is extensive too – with over 900 Australian bird species. Each bird is supported by detailed information, images and calls to help with ID.
It is, however, fairly intense and could be overwhelming for beginners. This app is a little on the pricey side too but for keen birders, this is a must have for Australian birding.
A great alternative to Pizzey & Knight Birds of Australia is the Birda app, with an equally extensive species guide and up-to-date information on exactly where to find these birds.
4. Morcombe & Stewart Guide
This app is another field guide, mostly aimed at seasoned birdwatchers. Each species is rich in information and fine detail. However, like Pizzey and Knight this app boasts information on an impressive 790 Australian species with high resolution images and highly detailed descriptions.
Like other apps, this too has over 1800 bird calls to help bring the birdwatching experience to life. The potential downside of this app is price and app size, but it’s worth remembering that it’s a big app because it works offline to give you the complete experience.
5. Aussie Bird Count
The Aussie Bird Count app is a great place to log your recordings for the Aussie Bird Count survey. Once a year, this app opens it’s recording function for the annual survey and contributes vital data to conservation efforts and scientific research.
Once of the downsides to this app is that it is only useful when the Australian Bird Count is active, usually in October of each year. In the meantime, whilst you wait for the survey to begin, you can brush up on your ID skills as it is extremely accessible and user friendly which is perfect for novices and hobbyists.
The app is easy to use and will use your phone’s location for the survey. Breeze through the in-built field guide to learn more about each bird you see. Something that makes this app stand out is that it feels like you’re being part of something bigger; your bird count information is joined with thousands of others to give a clearer picture of the birds you can see, which helps conservation efforts. The app is a little limited with bird call identification and it can have a tendency to be a little buggy but overall it’s a great app to download and be familiar with.
If your desire is to feel part of something bigger all year round, the Birda app is a great alternative for you. The birdwatching community are so friendly and each sighting counts towards science! Discover how Birda is one of the best birdwatching apps in Australia.
6. Stewart Australian Bird Calls
The Stewart Australian Bird Calls app is pretty similar to Australia Birds Sounds Pro. Their main aim is to offer identification through bird calls using your phone as the recording device. It boasts an astounding 3800 recordings for 725 species.
This app does lack offline functionality, which can be inconvenient at times, especially when birding somewhere remote. However in general, this is a great choice – especially with the ability to share recordings from the app elsewhere.
7. Australian Birds Sounds Pro
This is the Shazam of the birdwatching world! Simply record the bird song in question through the app and your mystery bird will be identified in seconds – it is also capable of working offline, so you can still identify your birds when out in the bush! It boasts an impressive 85% success rate and covers birds around Australia.
The app is well put together and constructed logically, making it easy to navigate and record. One of the main drawbacks of this app is that its species list is ever-growing but not complete. There are many birds missing from its archives.
You’ll also need to ensure that you get close to your mystery bird or record good quality sounds or the app can throw up false-positives. It also only recognises bird song not calls, which seasoned birders may find frustrating. However, for beginners and hobbyists, this is a great app to start with.
New to birdwatching? Why not check out our helpful guide on how to get started with birding!
8. Smart Bird ID (Australia & NZ)
Like many apps, Smart Bird ID is initially free but offers some premium features to enhance the experience. Smart Bird ID is very easy to use and has a pretty exhaustive list of birds within it (over 1000). It has maps, life lists and bird call identifier. Although, like the Stewart Australian Bird Calls app, it requires an active internet connection to work and can drain the battery of a phone very quickly if used too much.
Similar to the Birda app, the app has some nice community features where users can ask questions to the forum about anything birdy, though if you’re looking for friendly and community bird identification, Birda might be your best choice.
Conclusion
All apps mentioned have their own amazing capabilities but no matter which app you choose from the list of best birdwatching apps in Australia, you can always join the Birda app’s wonderful community. You can take sightings from other birding platforms and import them to Birda to take part in challenges.
Wherever your birdwatching journey takes you, a little bird app in your pocket will be just the thing to further your birdwatching passions in Australia.
