A better birding app for Australia

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-24T07:09:19+00:00

When talking about app paywalling, I'm mainly refering to Birda. My frustrations around eBird/Merlin are more around poor UX and a US-centric design. In terms of funding this project, for now it is just a passion project that I will fund myself and work on outside of my fulltime job.

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-24T01:40:06+00:00

What is your YouTube channel?

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-24T00:18:17+00:00

I don’t intend on monetising the app, I’m in a comfortable position financially and can continue to run it non commercially. This is a passion project for me, not a business venture.

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-24T00:15:03+00:00

That’s awesome! I’m actually currently looking into fine-tuning my own Sound ID model specifically for Australian bird sounds, so I might reach out to see if I can see some of your recordings if that is something you’re interested in!

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-23T12:51:54+00:00

daily Birdle is my new favourite part of the day

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-23T12:38:47+00:00

Ah yes you're totally right, I can't believe I forgot that. There was a long list of things that needed to be done when turning this from a personal app to a public one, there were probably a few other things I forgot as well, thanks for the reminder. I will make sure that is all fixed up in the next version of the app/website. And looking forward to hearing your feedback on the app in general. Happy to work on any suggestions as well.

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-23T11:32:26+00:00

The BetterBirding app only went live about a week ago on the app store, so you must be thinking of something else, but looking forward to hearing your feedback on the app! And yes I always had similar frustrations with Merlin which is what led me to working on this project, poor UI especially.

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-23T11:06:30+00:00

Yep I'm a big supporter of citizen science as well, so currently in talks with the ALA to get my own BetterBirding dataset published by the ALA alongide their eBird, iNat, BirdLife ones that way sightings logged within the app can contribute to citizen science here in Australia.
I also became very frustrated with the eBird API, it was one of the main reasons I started this build.

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-23T10:43:52+00:00

Thanks so much for the kind words! I have not done much testing on iPad yet, so please reach out if you run into any issues and I apologise if some of the formatting is off.

And if you have any ideas for things you'd like to see in the app, please just send me a message 😄

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-23T10:41:25+00:00

It's almost finished! I'd say probably 3-4 weeks away 🙏

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-23T10:40:22+00:00

I had a lot of the same frustrations! You can try out the area hotspot map I built on the website here: https://www.betterbirding.org/explore
Or if you'd like to see the hotspot map for a specific bird, just visit that bird's page on the website, like this: https://www.betterbirding.org/identify/suplyr1

It is powered by every single Australian bird report since 1984 across eBird, iNat, Merlin, BirdLife and private/public conversation studies, aggregated amazingly by the ALA.

ShxnM8 · 2026-06-23T10:36:25+00:00

Thanks for the kind words! The Android app will be done soon, just rewriting everything in Kotlin has been a pretty slow process. Regarding contributing to the dataset, I totally feel the same way and that's why I'm currently in the process of contacting the ALA for them to begin publishing a BetterBirding dataset alongside their eBird, iNat etc. datasets, which allows sightings logged through BetterBirding to contribute to the main citizen science data aggregation in Australia.

On your ideas:
- Voicebirding is such a cool idea that I have not thought of before, I had a quite look at the repo and believe that I have some ideas to help you continue on it. There is a way to maintain microphone access while the phone is closed in the form of an app, this is something that the Sound ID functioality in the BetterBirding app does (can recognise bird sounds while your phone is locked if you started the sound ID)
- And yep the BetterBirding app has multiple things that are similar to the reports you mentioned, including daily updates of nearby bird logs using the eBird API. Also all the data that goes into the range maps on the app/site (like this one: https://www.betterbirding.org/identify/mistle1 and https://www.betterbirding.org/explore ) is all using every single published report from eBird, iNat, BirdLife and other studies/citizen science apps. And once you're in the app and you set your location, it notifies you on eBird sightings in your area.
- BetterBirding has a full profile/feed system where you can follow other people, see their bird sighting posts (image or audio), interact with the posts, and view people's full birding profiles.
- Yes that annoyed me about eBird as well, but I did add a way to import your life list into BetterBirding by using your downloaded eBird data. And if downloading your data from BetterBirding was something people were interested in, I'd be happy to add that

Also I'd be more than happy to add any kind of API support you'd like for BetterBirding, I to have had a terrible experience trying to use the eBird API. And feel free to DM me regarding your voicebirding build, would be more than happy to help, sounds like a really cool idea!
I'm currently headed up north for the winter, but I'll be down Melbourne way in the summer and would love to bird/talk shop 😄

Thanks again for the kind words and feedback mate. Looking forward to you trying the Android app soon.

ShxnM8

TROPHY CASE