The Warbler Guide Reviews

by Naturefaith

TheWarblerGuide is based on the book of the same name. It's loaded with information about North American warblers. There are also some clever features such as 3D models you can rotate with your finger. That's the good news. The bad news is the UI is baffling to understand. I've spent 30 minutes trying to get a list of warblers in my area and I'm still stuck.

The other issue is everything is super tiny so it's hard to enter any details. Like the range map divides the USA into 4 quadrants so the is NW, SW, NE & SE. Pretty crude but I can't tell if my city is in the NW or SW.

It's interesting that an app can be overflowing with content and yet still be inaccessible. I wish I'd waited for someone else to buy it because it's pretty useless to me right now.

If the developers would allow zooming of the images and put some more details into the maps it would help a whole bunch.

Finally the developers need to write a tutorial with examples.

by Ricky Coyote

But giving a 2 rating because I hate the location feature. Why not allow a user to scroll through all the species? Inconvenient.

by Brown_Creeper

TheWarblerGuide is nice but a little frustrating. I find it easy to use for identifying the male species of warblers, but not much else. I really wish you were able to click on the type of warbler and see all plumages of male/female/1st year with underside tail plates of each too—Spring and Fall should all be grouped under same bird. The pics are a bit fuzzy and disorganized in my opinion. I really like the 3-D views, similar species listings, and “drab” references; however, really wish that everything was organized together for you for quicker referencing. Should have the underside tail plates in a quick-reference area too.

by Kimberlyfour

I was excited to discover TheWarblerGuide. Instead, I have been disappointed by the poor design of TheWarblerGuide and the lack of a search feature. I wanted to look up a warbler that TheWarblerGuide considers outside my region. The only way to do this was to change the region so the bird would show up. For the high price of TheWarblerGuide , I expect better.

by Funkeymonkeys

I’ve been using TheWarblerGuide for several years. It’s a handy reference to carry on your phone when out in the field. I love the ability to change views of all the birds to compare with the view you saw.
Living in central TX, I’ve wondered why they don’t list the Golden Cheeked Warbler at all. I figured it was so regionally limited to the TX Hill Country that they chose to omit it. Just today, I switched my map from the Southeast Version to the Southwest Map which covers from New Mexico to the pacific. Guess who I found! Golden Cheeked Warblers are only listed in the SW map (which does not include TX for TheWarblerGuide). Please, consider moving our favorite warbler to its rightful territory!
TheWarblerGuide would be much improved by making it easier to show “overlap” birds for those of us who are close to two map edges.

by Azgulo

An innovative app based on an innovative field guide. There is a lot to like about this new app. The user interface takes some getting used to, but checking out the user guide contained in TheWarblerGuide (see about/help) will help. Filters allow birders to narrow down candidates based on plumage features and/or song qualities, and there are some good tips that will prove helpful for learning warbler calls and songs, and great collection contained within. Great to have such a comprehensive collection of call notes and flight calls at one’s fingertips.

As a birder who spends time birding southern border states, I was disappointed that borderland species were omitted from TheWarblerGuide (no Tropical Parula, Rufous-capped Warbler, Crescent-chested, Fan-tailed, Golden-crowned, Slate-throated Redstart, Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, etc.). A few glitches/typos I noticed in version 1.0 include: Golden-cheeked Warbler labeled Golden-crowned. Some sound files seem to be missing including Virginia’s Warbler Type A1 and Pine Warbler Type B1 and B2. The Black & White Warbler call notes sound heavily clipped too, sounding too distorted. Future versions could benefit from a search by species name function to more quickly call up a particular species, and I would like to see the inclusion of scientific names in the species accounts.

Overall, a fine addition to the iOS birder’s kit. Hopefully updates will continually improve upon this foundation.

by P SOUL

Great content. Really helpful for improving ID. Could benefit from a search option to locate whatever bird you want to see. It’s hard to use in the field when you run into a bird and quickly want to navigate to its info pages.

by Ath Man

The concept of TheWarblerGuide is great and much of the the execution is well done. However, the Swainson's Thrush really needs an overhaul and there needs to be more focus on diagrams with text regarding distinguishing characteristics between similar warblers.

by Bluepurr5

I've used this out in the field a couple of times already and found it helpful. The user interface gets easier the more you play with it. I am having one majorish problem though. When I go into a category like age/sexing, often times the description under each photo is cut off mid-sentence. I've tapped, pinched, and dragged every which way, but I can't seem to find a way to expose the full text. Not something that is going to matter a lot to me in the field, but I would like to be able to see the full text descriptions when I am studying at home.

by Bird-preferred Nerd

The seasonal migrations of warblers are exciting, intense, confusing, and over in the blink of an eye. The tools you'll need to survive are a strong neck for looking up, powerful optics, polarized sunglasses, and a phone with TheWarblerGuide.

Every birder is familiar with Princeton's printed edition of the Warbler Guide, but few know about their app. Even if you have the book, TheWarblerGuide is perfect for quick reference and comparison of the warbler species. You can set up your region and season to simplify the listed birds. The images show every angle of the bird possible, including the underside and tail of the bird.

I also love the sound comparison section in TheWarblerGuide , in which you can do an advanced vocal search, based on buzzy quality, number of phrases in a song, upward or downward notes, etc. Bird songs can also be compared to others, which is an incredible feature that helped me identify a Cerulean and Orange-crowned.

This is totally worth the money. Time to go birding!

by Ornithusiast

I downloaded a day ago. It is easy to use and I love the 3D view (View options). The interface is much nicer on my iPad but it also works well on the iPhone. I like being able to choose the season and geographical area to show birds expected in your area. My ONLY critical comment would be that the songs be labeled for regional variancies. I have to add one more critical comment. Where is Olive Warbler? It appears they forgot at least one warbler

by BMH292

Intuitive and easy to use interface. The first page is thumbnail pictures of warblers, making it easy to find a bird similar to the sighting and click on it for details. There are multiple pictures of each bird from different angles. Most of the pictures are clear and crisp. Similar species are presented also. I have already used TheWarblerGuide to identify one of my mystery bird pictures. This will easily become one of my favorite bird apps.

by MLStephenson

This is the definitive guide for Warblers for which we have all been waiting! The most comprehensive source of songs and calls with informative sonograms essential for dissecting vocalizations! 3-D views for positive ID's even with a limited view, whether just a glimpse of the face, side or sighting from underneath! The regional filters are very helpful for reducing the number of warblers to only those species found in your region! This is an app that should be on every birders phone or iPad!

by David Brown In PA

I also own the book and have find it very useful, but for use away from home TheWarblerGuide will be sufficient. Very easy to jump between comparison species. The vocalizations with sonograms are great for audio recordists and the half-speed feature is neat. 3D is cool and I hope it expands to guides that cover all bird species. I can see it being useful because you can spin the bird to match the same angle as in a photograph you have. You can pick a species and another comparison species and rotate both of the 3D models in sync. I find TheWarblerGuide intuitive to navigate and it has an about/help section that has a user guide that explains everything. From now on I will probably go to TheWarblerGuide first rather than the book. Great job and well worth the money.

by BrutalBrutus

Great app, you need to update the underside picture of connecticy warbler-the big grey blob from the branch covers up the underside/coverts

by Patrik6

A great aid in discerning what warbler you were looking at in the field. The comparative chart with other species is valuable. The rotatable 3-D illustration of each warbler is fantastic.

by Jose2088

Can’t say enough about the 3D views and all the pictures of different angles in different plumages. Haven’t even mentioned the songs/calls yet.

by [Jacob]

TheWarblerGuide is full of great tools for identification. Includes useful views from many angles (underside view is very helpful for staring into the canopy) and full 360° models for every vantage point. It has tools to guide you through identification like sorting by song type and painting in a warbler silhouette to search possible species. Species can be sorted in traditional name/taxonomy style OR by similarity in coloration - great for when you aren’t quite sure what you’ve seen yet but know what it looks like, rather than hunting through pages and pages of drawings. Interface is very smooth and quick to load as well. The only downside is the comparison section doesn’t tell you who would win in a fight.

by Jensbirds

An absolutely terrific app. It's incredibly complete for identifying warblers in all seasons, with many superb photos of each bird from realistic and very helpful angles - including an amazing rotatable 360° view - and a wide selection of different versions of each bird's songs and calls. You can filter for geographical area and time of year, which is tremendously helpful for narrowing the field of candidates right out of the gate, then optionally also filter for a variety of specific characteristics if you want to narrow the possibilities even further. An incredibly valuable resource. I just wish other field guides had some of the same great features. (And no, I don't know the makers of TheWarblerGuide personally!)

by Alyssalgrace

Incredibly well thought out application for warblers that makes it easy to study and compare views and songs of warblers. I love the option to view Warblers in a 3D format. Simply brilliant! I also love the ability to compare warblers with similar songs and view their sonograms and descriptions of the songs and what makes them both similar and different. Great filter options to search for a warbler if you only have seen part of the bird. If you have other clues such as the type of song, e.g., buzzy etc, then the filter will group the likely birds. A great tool in the field and also for study at home. I wish that these same features could be incorporated into a Northeastern Bird application for all birds, in addition to warblers. A must buy for bird lovers!

by Newyardbirds69

Loaded with content! Clean & slick interface but can be a tad confusing at first. 3D models of birds and ability to compare them with other species on the fly is a great feature. Would be cool if they were animated too. Great companion app that serves as a lifeline to warbler identification when out in the thick of it. Recommended for bird lovers everywhere.

by Greg's Sweetie

TheWarblerGuide is amazing! Just got the iPhone 6 and TheWarblerGuide on it's mind blowing!
I have the book, and now TheWarblerGuide to go with the book!
Holy smokes! The 3D is AMAZING!!! You can spin the bird up down sideways truly ingenious!
Birders need to see underneath, the tail, the top of the forehead, their sounds! Just wow! I can't say enough.
It would be really nice if you could zoom in on the pictures, but that's what updates are for.
Great job!!!!
I love to play sound games, and Naturetap is out of TheWarblerGuide Store, but this just makes you want to soak in all the information you can get!
Now if you could do this with ALL birds, you would easily be the number one birding app.

by Ramington III

Intuitive experience, slick comparative methods, and loaded with great data. This creates a lovely and accessible experience from what could have been an overwhelming compilation of info. I dare say it's a new standard for palm-sized field guides. A must have for enthusiasts.