BirdsEye Bird Finding Guide Reviews

There are as many great things about BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide as there are bad things. I’ve been paying for the world subscription for several years, yet sometimes when I try to pull up a species account it states that I need to subscribe. Many of the species have top-notch photos, while others have lower quality photos. When you dig into things a bit, one of the reasons for this becomes apparent - a handful of photographers screw with the ratings so excellent photos that are not theirs are scored lower. This is most apparent with many of the Australian species - the same 2-3 photographers are represented across many of the species from this continent. While the information available in BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide is robust, loading time is an issue. For example, when one attempts to load a checklist via a species featured in the rare birds section, it can take up to a minute to load the checklist. It’s been like this for at least two years. And no, this isn’t an issue with my phone - I’ve replicated this issue on other phones. Next, getting any sort of response from people who run BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide is impossible. I’ve never gotten a response from them (although if BirdsEye has the same owner it had 10 years, this is not surprising). Lastly, each year there seems to be fewer and fewer updates to BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide . In fact, I don’t think there have been any in 2021. And in past couple of weeks more things have stopped working on BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide .

This is one of the apps that every birder should have. It tells you which birds to expect at any given time of year in any given area, which is amazingly helpful. The photos and audio files are all excellent quality. For beginners, BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide will allow you to easily scroll through the birds in your area, allowing you to potentially identify the bird without flipping through a field guide. More experienced birders will love the frequency bars showing when to expect each bird throughout the year, and the audio files for each species. BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide does not give detailed descriptions of birds (such as behaviors and habitat), so it does not replace more in-depth field guides. But for actual usefulness while birding, BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide is essential.

After spending $14 dollars on the North American membership and the Eastern North American package (I should’ve just gotten the membership, whoops), I ran into a frustrating number of tech issues. I was only able to solve them by reading through the support FAQ, which is an annoying amount of work for such an expensive app. First, BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide kept telling me that I was viewing a “free preview”, which wasn’t true. Also, I couldn’t click on the buttons on the bottom of the page because of the green banner advertising other memberships for purchase. After reading the support FAQ, I had to change my iPhone app settings and then “restore purchases” in BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide itself. I had no issues downloading data for offline use, although it took about 10 minutes. I’ll update this review as I get to use BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide more in the field.

Very painful user experience.

When I try to view a bird it’s says you need a subscription. You can’t use BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide without paying apparently. I purchased a subscription and then I need to download 15,000+ files.

So I start downloading but if the phone goes to sleep the download stops and I get a download error. So I plug the phone in and keep it awake by tapping the screen and watch 1000’s of files slowly download.

After 30 minutes the download finishes. Then I try to view a bird’s info and it tells me to download again.

So I try to download again and it tells me I’ve already downloaded.

No documentation other than a pitch to pay for a subscription. No troubleshooting guide. The contact support link is broken so there is no way to get assistance and no way to figure what I did wrong.

So I delete the the download and try again. Same problem. I’ve been trying to get this to work for hours now. It’s just $3 so it’s not really worth the trouble to try to get a refund.

I would rather have not spent so much time trying to get this to work.

There are other apps that do work and don’t charge monthly fees. Try Audubon Birds or Merlin Bird ID. You will need to download bird packs for those but it only takes a few seconds to download.

I strongly recommend you don’t pay for BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide when there are much better free alternatives.

BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide is excellent. I haven’t had any of the other problems that I’ve seen in other comments. No download issues, it’s been completely free for me to use. I LOVE that it shows the time of year that each species occurs in your location.
This is app is intuitive and full of great information for beginners to lifelong birders.
Comparison:
I don’t like how the list funtion works for tracking birds you have seen. It seems that lists are tied to EBird hotspot locations only, so I could not, for example, make a backyard list for BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide. I don’t mind This however, because I only use eBird for list making anyways. The Audubon app also has custom list making ability, so this downside to BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide does not impact my use of it.
Audubon app also shows birds around you, but it doesn’t include all hotspots, so BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide holds more information. Other apps with this level of functionality are not free.
You can get all this information on the ebird website, but BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide is the best option when you aren’t using a laptop.
10 our of 10 in my book.

Newest successful experience with this profoundly useful and elegant app: I was attending a meeting at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (someone had to go!). As I always do on such trips, I looked to see if there were any nearby opportunities to see new birds. I hadn't been to Wyoming for decades, so there were several, and at one site only 29 minutes away by car someone had reported a Great Grey Owl to eBird just 5 days before. After the meetings were over I went to the location, Upper Turpin Meadows, and while I didn't find an owl my first visit, in the afternoon, I did find one the next morning. Life Bird. Thank you BirdsEye!

Birdseye is indispensable! The best thing is that it shows which birds have been seen IN THE AREA where you are visiting, and provides a bar graph of the number of sightings by month. So you can quickly narrow down which are the likely species that you have seen. It is crowd-sourced and linked to EBird (both from Cornell). BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide also includes photos of the birds, but does NOT contain descriptions of the birds—its only weakness. But use Birdseye in combination with one of the apps (like Audubon) that provide descriptions. Also, Birdseye works all over the world, not just in North America. An amazing app that has revolutionized birding!

BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide conveniently pulls together all of the eBird information you would want, allowing you to review what has been seen in the field recently so that you can prepare an outing. You can connect to eBird so that your life list is uploaded which allows BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide to present your needs list for a given area. Multiple field photos are great as well as the songs and calls making it a great tool to assist with difficult identification. Love BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide!

I used to like BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide. Somewhere along the way I became unable to log on to it, yet it has so much of my important information. When I try to login with my prior login information, I am told that if I give my email address I will be sent the ability to change my password, but I have tried numerous times and never receive an email. I’ve complained to customer support repeatedly and no one gets back to me. So now I’m traveling in South America without the photos and information and favorite place tags and everything else I was planning to use for this trip. I highly recommend NOT purchasing BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide until it is clear that you won’t lose all of your data and not be able to reach customer support

I had high hopes for BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide. The concept is great. However, on a trip to South America I found that when doing a smart search and selecting yellow as a search criteria, no species were exhibited. I reported this the the developers and was informed that it was a problem in the software. This was back in December. After returning to the U.S., I found that the same issue was present when using BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide in the Northwest. After communicating with the developers, I was told the problem was being worked on and that they would let me know when is was resolved. That was over a month ago, and I have received no update since then, and to the best of my knowledge, the problem still exists.

This is my go to app for bird info. It is an encyclopedia of bird info, with range maps, descriptions, detailed ID features, search capabilities, sounds, etc., etc. The unique feature is having both paintings (with key features identified) and photos. A more complete set of photos would be useful—for some species there are redundant photos of adult males but no photos of juveniles or nonbreeding plumages.

I use & enjoy frequently even though I am unable to bird as much as previously. If I want to know if the Cedar Waxwings are still in my area in spring I go to Birdseye where I can see chart of recent sightings in date order. I also love Daily Bird app for seeing birds I may or may not ever see as well as remembering birds I have seen & enjoyed in the past. Brings back many great memories.

It’s become very buggy in the past year. Most annoyingly,It now tells me I have a new Internet connection, even though I have full bars and all the other apps I have no problem connecting. Also,When I try to “ select a life or year list” either nothing happens or it goes to the select language screen. Developers, please fix!

I’ve used dozens of bird apps through their and my lifespan. The overwhelming majority of apps I liked costed money, and only a few that were free had the same value as a paid app. Birds Eye, by far, is my favorite bird app of 7+ years along with eBird. Don’t bother with the paid apps, everything is inside of this well-designed, well-executed free app.

First: this is one my most used apps. I use it almost every day and I pay for the annual membership and have recommended it for years to anyone who would listen. That said, recently BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide has stopped working for me. I have done my due diligence with research as well as deleting and reinstalling. I’m having the same issue on multiple devices. I’ve sent so many requests for support through different channels and all have gone unanswered. I’m so disappointed to not have any means of customer support and sad to not have BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide available when I’m out birdwatching.

I have lived in a tiny camper for over 4 years and wander this gorgeous country full time often camping off grid. I follow the birds. Everywhere I go I use BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide to find the birds in the area and plan my birding. It lets me know what birds I’ve not seen or what is notable or rare in the area. It uses EBird and my life list to figure it all out. I recommend it to birders I meet all the time.

Conceptually a great resource but not so good in practice. I’ve subscribed to the world version for several years. Seems to have issues detecting that my phone has moved to a new location (new country or state). Wish there was some way to access the actual eBird checklists that are being mapped. Too frequently a dot on a map doesn’t provide enough information.

I really enjoy BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide . It has helped me find birds I wouldn’t have without it. It was especially helpful in planning trips - until the “Browse By Location” stopped being updated about a month ago. I really used that function a lot. I hope it is fixed soon.

I really like BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide, particularly the life list. I was able to add, one species at a time, my entire life list which is currently at 615. It took a couple days of work but now I have an easy to access list and BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide will notify me of nearby species observed that I still need on my list. This alone is worth the price.

I refer to BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide frequently to see what birds are showing up or leaving here locally or when I travel, I can find the hotspots with recent bird sightings AND get directions to those locations. It has some other helpful bird id features, but not as robust as some other digital “field guides” like Sibley’s or iBird Pro.

I need to BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide , as I am to birding, in the last year. I generally like BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide and have found it useful, but it can be frustrating to use, especially when it forgets that I’ve already purchased packages. If, as Danny Sloan right in his review two years ago, a few photographers are manipulating the rating so that possibly better photographs than their own are used for certain birds, this is a problem. Is also a problem if the developer is unresponsive to help requests, as some reviewers complain. I have not tested this, but, as it has been my experience with many apps, I find the reviews that mention this to me credible. Lastly, if BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide is not regularly updated as it should be to be kept current, that’s really unacceptable for a paid app.

Last update was over 3 years ago, and it shows. BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide is buggy, not accurate, looks dated, and costs too much when you take into account it has been this long between updates. The eBird app does MOST of what BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide does for FREE…and does those things correctly. After using it for a bit, I find BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide’s workflows to be very unintuitive. And there are way too many un-ending spinners. It seems to always want to download sightings, rather than simply updating them…and this process takes a minute or two every few times you open BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide . For $60/year, I need to see the developer cares about BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide with regular updates and customer support responses rather than just sitting back and collecting royalties.

I’ve used BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide since before the eBird app came out. I still find it essential for searching eBird observations that are county-specific and rare & notable observations throughout a large area. The eBird app only allows a 30-mile radius so it’s frustrating when you are planning a road trip and you’re not within 30 miles of your destination. Also, BirdsEye shows checklist comments which is essential for access and specific location of target birds. BirdsEyeBirdFindingGuide has been quite slow to load in the last few months but still works if you are patient. In short, this is a very useful app that i hope will continue b being updated and improved and i plan to keep using.