Birds of Western Palearctic 4+

I bought this guide app on the strength of the Sibley one and was disappointed due to insufficient quality control of the content: Typographical errors, missing range maps when the text refers to them, and misplaced species illustrations.

There is unrealized potential in the app. The range feature could be enabled by country, and more audio of bird songs and calls added.

Also, Birds of Europe by Mullarney, Svensson, Zetterström and Grant would have been a better choice for content.

This is a very, very comprehensive bird cataloguer/identifier for all of Europe.

It is probably rightly indispensable for experienced birders because it has so much solid and detailed information.

It is not good for relative newcomers to the pass-time: The identification tool requires one to know first what species or family of birds one is looking for to be able to find anything close.

Understand this well before you buy.

A much more useful identification tool would allow one to start with size, colours, beak type, habitat. Then the search engine would list all the families/species that meet the criteria and let one select the bird closest to what one saw.

So for someone alone and learning, like me, this is a waste of over $40.00 (after taxes).

Just downloaded the app for $40. I did it to prepare for a trip to Europe and learn the calls. I expected something equivalent to the Sibley or Peterson birds for North America.

Most of the birds don’t have the calls in this application... some as common as the common grackle. A lot of the birds also don’t have a distribution map, which leaves outside birders to guess where to find them.

I think this expensive application was rushed and is incomplete.

Please refrain from spending $40 for this my friends birders...

Francois Ouellet Canada