Guide to Birds of North America version 3.9.3.0
Reviewed by Robert Pritchett
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Creator: Pete
Thayer
Thayer Birding Software
809 Walkerbilt Road, Suite #4
Naples, FL 34110-1511
http://www.thayerbirding.com/
Released for Mac – December 3, 2007, For MS Vista, July 31, 2007
$85 USD.
http://www.thayerbirding.com/dnn/Default.aspx?tabid=608
Includes: The Birder’s Handbook
Requirements: A
desire to do birding. Internet access. Mac OS X 10.3 or later, 256MB RAM, 750
MB hard drive space, CD-ROM to install.
ISBN: 1887148914
Strengths: Ability
to find birds by location, size, habitat, color, field marks, group or even
sound. Links to more info included online.
Weaknesses: Forum
registration requires copy/paste of source code in Safari, since the .aspx
site doesn’t play nice with Mac OS X 10.5.2 Leopard. Male-centric photos (few female bird photos). |
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Introduction
With this app installed on your
computer, along with the RavenLite app, wecan view over 2,700 color photos,
see 90 video clips, hear over 700 songs and learn how to identify 925
birds that have been seen in the continental U.S. and Canada. We can also can
take over 700 quizzes. We can identify unknown birds by color, size, habitat,
location and even by sound and compare two birds side-by-side. We can keep a
record of the birds we have seen. We can add your own comments, photos and
Internet links to each bird.
We can learn more than just bird
identification - with the Birder's Handbook (included in electronic format) we
can learn about diet, nesting behavior, raising young and more for over
650 breeding birds. There are also 250 essays on birds, bird behavior and
famous ornithologists.
What I Learned
We can also watch action videos of birds in their habitat,
from the Guide to Birds of North America and we can download to iPods or MP3
players. The Birder’s Handbook however is loaded with essays and lists bird
biologists in 247 articles. With the included Raven Lite 1.0 software from the
Cornell Lab of Ornithology, I can listen to and see spectrograms of many of the
bird’s calls (at least 708 of them) and do recordings as a taste for going to
the Pro version –
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/raven/Raven.html
For example, by using this software, I now know what a
humming bird call sounds like of one that is in my part of the state of
Washington (I can choose from among 478 birds in the list).
If I so desire, I could make screen savers that sing.
I can also list similar species and birds of the same
family. I can also find common names of birds in French, German or Spanish as
well as English. Lists can be shown with common or scientific names and in
alphabetical or taxonomic order.
The forums can be found at http://www.thayerbirding.com/dnn/Forums/tabid/599/Default.aspx.
As of this review, I had to copy/paste the source code to be able to register
using Mac OS X 10.5.2. I’m sure it is a security issue, since the site is .aspx
technology.
There are links to the top 25 birding sites, Wildbirds,
Cornel Lab on Ornithology, BirdSource, Project FeederWatch, Backyard Birds, the
American Birding Association, a checklist by state and province and a free
birding newsletter.
Conclusion
I’m excited that there is such software available for the
Mac that works with Leopard. The quizzes are great, the maps are wonderful and
the sounds are pristine. The additional info associated with the included
electronic books are a great thought and so is the included Ravin spectrograph
software. It is obvious this app was developed by a bird-lover.
Now I’m going to go bug the cat and see if he can get
excited about hearing the birds on the computer and seeing them as well.