Birdsong Apps Being Overused in the Field?

I love my iPhone and all its great Apps. I use iBird Explorer and the Audubon guides, among others, on a regular basis. Birding guides of the paper variety will not be disappearing anytime soon, and they are the best tool for doing comparisons of species, as most of the current apps show only one bird illustration at a time. Though that is changing.

One of my clients just sent me a link to a great article about the overuse of playback with the advent of smartphone apps. Read Sandi Doughton’s Seattle Times article “Naturalists fear overuse of birdcall apps” here…

Apps have some great advantages over the standard field guides as they can have multiple images along with illustrations, as well as multiple guides options in one compact unit. Another great advantage over books is that Apps can play songs! This one tool alone can help a new birder become a better birder through study and memorization. However, they also have a dark side…

Many tour companies have been using tape playback in the field for years to bring birds in close for their clients to see. Sadly, many leaders that I have seen using playback in the field are certainly more concerned with ‘getting the bird’ than for the welfare of the birds themselves. I have, on several occasions, heard an endangered or threatened species singing and had our group go searching, only to find another tour company playing a tape for a breeding endangered species! The advent of these Apps along with micro-speaker design has allowed the masses to mimic what they see “trained professionals” doing, with no regard for the birds’ welfare.

I had a couple of forays into using playback many years ago, and I watched in horror on two occasions as the bird I called was killed by a predator after being summoned into view. I personally have quit using playback nearly 100% — only a few times in recent years when searching for an owl. Most of my clients appreciate the fact I don’t use playback, and many have told me how annoying guides can be when they misuses the capability.

On one tour to Panama’s Darien we did a comparison. A very well known and respected, large bird tour company had visited this prime birding location the week before us and earned 266 species using tape playback for many of them. We did not use any playback and got 329 species seen. Did we work for them? Of course, but isn’t that what birding is all about? The challenge of the search is fun and finding the bird is that much more rewarding!

Read the Seattle Times article and let us know your opinion!