Free Mobile Application for Smartphones, Tablets Helps Identify Birds in Nature


Sofia, January 21 (BTA) - The renovated free mobile SmartBirds
application helps nature lovers and Android users identify birds
 in the environment. The improvements and the capacity of the
application were presented at a news conference hosted by the
National Museum of Natural History by Svetoslav Spassov, an
expert at the Bulgarian Society for Protection of Birds (BSPB).

This is the first application for smartphones focused on the
protection of nature in Bulgaria. The main aim is to involve
young nature lovers in collecting information about the birds,
Spassov explained. The first version of the application has been
 downloaded by over 1,600 users, he added.

The new variant includes more species, an English version,
photos and detailed information about all 269 birds nesting in
Bulgaria. Users can also receive information about the Bulgarian
 protected areas under the EU Birds Directive included in the
NATURA 2000 network.

The successful identification of the observed birds depends on
the skills of the amateur nature lovers to compare correctly the
 relevant species with the photos. There are also photos of
similar birds accompanying each species to help identify the
concrete one correctly. The information can be sent to BSPB and
this is the most widespread way of collecting information in the
 world, the specialists said.

A free version for professionals has also been developed -
SmartBirds Pro is for biologists and advanced nature lovers.
They can use a digital field diary for fast and easy recording
of observation of birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals in
Bulgaria and send the information to the BSPB database.

Both applications can be downloaded from Google Play.