eBird

This is why I’ve stopped donating $ to them. They use it to make things worse. They just changed things (again)—Why?!? They always take a good thing and try to mess it up. Have they brought back the daily trip report? No!! Used to be able to do that on the mobile app—no longer. Not sure why this latest change—besides making things confusing, I haven’t been able to detect a change in functionality.

I admit, this app has come a long way since the beginning, but even in 2024, it’s still lacking basic functionality, so I removed 3 stars from my original review. I use eBird for my job, so I’m using it multiple times per day when I’m in the field. I canNOT stand the fact that I have to toggle between numbers and letters every single time I want to enter the species! It should *always* start with letters! I can’t upload media in the app; instead, I have to submit a checklist through the app then take the extra step to go to ebird.org to add media. Why?? It is also infuriating that I can’t import IDs from Merlin. Instead, I have to switch back and forth between the two, which is ridiculous in 2024. Come on, Cornell, you’re sitting on piles of money most scientists can only dream of, there’s NO reason for this app to be so primitive. It’s obvious that you’ve been pouring money into Merlin, how about using some of it to improve the app at the heart of everything you’re trying to do.

Bird pack downloads are ridiculously slow - it takes several minutes to DL a single 2-4MB file; it should be a few seconds. There is no button for “update all my packs”. There is no composite US country pack. There is no auto-update option for bird packs. The bird counting interface is counterintuitive and really needs context sensitive assistance. Search interface sometimes stops working properly, requiring app restart. The bird reference info has way too few photos of birds in flight as seen from below. Most of these issues have existed for a couple of years or more, so it’s not clear whether Cornell realizes they are problems, or whether they lack the right devs to address them.

Reading some of the reviews, I agree it seems odd what you can’t do with the app that you can do on line or with Merlin. But I do find it better in fact to keep my list running in one app and using another to detect bird song.

I love the app but now since it was updated lost all the images and search function no longer working like when I try to view a bird that I captured it keeps taking me to the settings for bird packs which I had already installed and I don't know what changed or how to get it back to the way it was before it updated :(

Having to flip back and forth between the two apps to identify first then track the bird is silly. Please merge apps.

tsp on pin dont give site name, eg name of paerk needed for plan vacation trails to visit

If I want to see observations at local birding hotspots, anytime I click one I have to wait for the app to decide when it wants me to be able to click details. Could be on the fifth try, could be on the fiftieth. No idea why this happens—very bad user experience. Not to mention I really have to install bird packs to record my sightings—and when I do that multiple times in a week, it gets real old watching the pack take two minutes to download when all I wanted to do was record my findings.

When I tap to search for species the keyboard switches to numbers and special characters when it should just stay on letters. It’s extraordinarily tedious to switch back and forth

The point of Merlin is to ID birds by sound. There is no number of birds to be assumed if you are just listening. Additionally, each recording may have several hits. But transferring this information to eBird is poor at best with every ID be logged separately. Deleted the program.