iBird Photo Sleuth

One of my hobbies is wildlife photography, particularly bird photography. So I generally have a photo of the birds I want to identify (sometimes a good one, sometimes a marginal one). I am not an experienced birder and I have found this app very useful in making bird IDs where the bird is not one that everyone knows. For example, earlier this year I photographed some birds in a marshy area of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The birds looked like largish sparrows to me, but I was not able to match them up with sparrows in my bird apps and guides. I ran a picture through iBird Photo Sleuth and found out the bird was a female red-winged blackbird. Perhaps I should have guessed this, as there were easily recognizable male red-winged blackbirds around, but I did not. I confirmed this looking in my apps and guides, including iBird, but most apps index birds by the more colorful male, so I might not have found it without the photo ID. The app has helped me identify a number of other birds, including various warblers, sparrows, and small falcons called merlins. I also use the app to confirm IDs where I am not entirely sure. I also like the fact that the app gives percentage estimates when it comes up with multiple possibilitirs. The integration with my iBird app is also quite helpful. I look forward to the continued development of the app and its possible expansion to areas outside North America.

I am absolutely amazed at how accurately this identified birds from my photos. Even got one I misidentified way back and recently was told otherwise (which was an Olive-sided Flycatcher). It missed two. It missed an Empid Flycatcher but amazingly enough I had two photos of the same bird and it got it on the second try which was a much better side shot. Well, can’t complain because we all know how difficult those Empids are to identify! It also missed a photo of a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk. Thought it was a Red-tailed. Again, not complaining. A lot of people think a dark morph Roughy might be a Red-tailed and I can’t imagine how hard it is for software to figure this out. I tried all sorts of birds. In trees, in water, in flight on the ground. It got them right. I love it. I am definitely going to tell my birding friends. Now I got to try it with some lousy bird photos. But, I don’t take lousy bird photos...most of the time! At least I don’t keep lousy bird photos. Got to take some! A great app and well worth the money. My hats off to the excellent job.

I was skeptical of this app since I’d already purchased a similar app that claimed to ID birds by song. It was a total failure. But this app is good. If iBird Photo Sleuth represents the future of bird identification my days as a birding expert may be numbered. I submitted a collection of difficult to identify photographs I’ve taken and was surprised at how well it worked. Out of 10 hard to identify photos it got 8 correct. I was actually relieved when it got confused telling a Chipping-Sparrow from a House Sparrow, so there’s still hope for my skills. But the app was able to identify some very poor quality photographs that stumped my buddies. A Golden-crowned Kinglet was just a fuzzy blob on a branch; it must have keyed an orange-yellow crown you can barely make out to identify it correctly. I think the price is fair, especially given the app provides range maps and good quality illustrations. As an iBird Pro owner I like that it will open that app from its own ID page. However I’d actually prefer if this was an in-app purchase for iBird instead of YAA (yet another app), as my iPhone is just too cluttered with birding apps. They ask your permission to train the AI using your photos. Given how bad the quality of the ones I submitted are, I wish them luck. Overall I’ll give this app 5 stars, mainly for the accuracy and the simplicity of the interface.