Birdex Smartphone App
Anyone who is revising for any of the Mountain Training leadership awards and especially for Lowland Leader, Hill and Moorland Leader or Mountain Leader knows that they have to learn a certain amount of fauna and flora. Consequently here at Beyond the Edge we try and recommend various helpful resources including books, blogs and increasingly smartphone apps.
Two apps that we routinely recommend are Merlin Bird ID and Shroomify are both excellent examples and very popular with attendees on our courses. And now we have Birdex, a newly developed app that we will add to our list of favourites. Birdex is a very simple and effective way of keeping track of any birds you spot while out and about in the countryside.
It’s free to download and presents a simple interface that is immediately usable. Illustrations of birds are shown in greyed out boxes. When you spot a bird you can scroll the list or search for it and then click on the relevant box and a description appears and you can log your sighting. You can enter the location and also add notes. When you return to the home screen your logged bird is now shown in colour.
As you spot and log more birds you gain rewards and badges. You also receive a ranking (as I write I’m at #4724 having logged 10 birds with 629 left to spot!). There are daily quizzes and a weekly bird bingo. There is also a friends leaderboard that enables you to compete with your fellow birders (Chris will definitely be at the top of the Beyond the Edge board!).
A useful feature for leaders and instructors are the fun facts for each particular bird ie I didn’t know that Starlings can mimic sounds including car alarms and other birds.
I’ve been enjoying re-spotting my favourite birds and building up my list, this will be particularly useful through the coming spring as the various migrating birds return to our gardens, the moors and the mountains.
Birdex is definitely an app worth adding to our phones as we all build up our essential nature knowledge.
Find it here – https://birdexapp.com/
Alex
Beyond the Edge Ltd is based in the Peak District, easily reached by train from London and within easy travelling distance from Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham and other Northern towns and cities.
We are one of the UKs most experienced providers of climbing, walking, scrambling, mountaineering and navigation training courses.
Most of our courses are run in the Peak District National Park which has some of the finest rock climbing, bouldering, walking and hiking in the world.
