INTRODUCTION

Please note the iPhone Edition and iPad Edition are sold separately.

The Roberts VII Multimedia Birds of Southern Africa iPhone Edition and iPad Edition is a uniquely comprehensive and interactive program, with functionality that far exceeds similar publications worldwide. It includes a Field Guide, Bird Guide, My Location, My Lists, Identification, and Birding Sites.

The Field Guide is a first for iPhone apps, displaying the full field guide pages of a typical bird book.

The Bird Guide includes a full bird list and individual bird pages for each bird.

My Location is an interactive map for finding your current location, generating bird lists, and locating birding sites near you. (Requires GPS functionality).

My Lists is a personal list manager that includes a life list and sub-lists that report to your life list. You can also export and import lists using iTunes.

Identification uses your location, habitat, bird shapes and plumage to identify a bird. You can also identify bird sounds and bird nests and eggs.

Birding Sites includes details of 290 birding sites around Southern Africa, with functions for a bird list, ‘show on map’ and a seven-day weather forecast.

FIELD GUIDE

The Field Guide displays the field guide pages of a typical bird book and works as a field guide was intended to, providing quick and easy access to a bird group or species, and allowing instant comparison for identification.

A family list allows quick access to any bird family, and you can swipe through the pages.

On the Field Guide page you tap on a bird to identify it, and pop up a toolbar with essential functions, including:

• Open the bird page
• Play the bird sound
• View similar birds
• Add to your list
• View alternative names
• Return to home page

BIRD GUIDE – Bird List

The Bird Guide includes a full bird list and bird pages for all 962 species.

The bird list can be text-searched for a bird name or quick-scrolled using the alphabetical index, and a range of essential functions are available directly off the list.

• Tapping on a bird name will open the functions toolbar.
• Tapping a second time will open the bird page.
• Tapping the ‘add to list’ button will automatically add the bird to your personal list and a confirmation tick to the bird name.

In addition, the toolbar gives quick access to the following essential functions:

• Play the bird sound
• Add to your list
• View similar birds
• Open the field guide page
• View alternative names

Bird List Options

Bird List options include lists for all countries and provinces in Southern Africa, and bird names in English, Afrikaans, French, German, Dutch and Portuguese. The list can be sorted alphabetically or by family, searched for a bird name, and scrolled instantly with the alphabetical index on the right of the list. The name of the list and number of birds is reported above the list.

BIRD GUIDE – Bird Page

The bird page is highly functional yet easy to use. Swipe right to left to scroll through the images, swipe up to scroll through the text, or tap on the bird image to load the function toolbar.

The images include illustrations, distribution map and photos, with nests and eggs of breeding species.

The screen can also be rotated for a larger image.

Bird Page Texts

Scroll up on the bird image to view the Field Guide text, Sound text, and full Roberts VII text. Adjust the text size with the [AA] button.

Bird Page Functions

Tap on the bird image to load the function toolbar. The functions include:

• Play the bird sound
• Add/edit your sighting
• View similar birds
• Open the field guide page
• View alternative names
• Tap on the arrows at the top of the screen to page through the bird list

SIMILAR and COMPARE BIRDS

Similar birds can be opened from the field guide, bird list and bird page toolbars. The function lists similar birds with toolbar functions to:

• open the bird page
• play the sound
• add/edit to your list
• compare the birds side by side

Tap the Compare button and the bird pages are shown in a split screen, with full swiping and scrolling functions of the bird page. Tap the bird image to play the sound.

MY LOCATION

My Location is a powerful tool for finding your current location, generating a bird list for your current or alternative location, viewing nearby birding sites, and recording your GPS co-ordinates with your bird list. The toolbar includes functions for:

• Show current location
• Drop pin for new location
• Show birding site pins
• Search for a location by name

The module uses Google Maps and built-in GPS functionality to find your current location. The latitude and longitude is easily interpreted for atlassing purposes. Birding site descriptions and bird lists can be loaded directly from the map.

(For offline use there are pre-loaded regional and birding site lists.)

IDENTIFICATION

The Identification Module brings together a range of observations to aid your identification of a bird, including:

• Distribution based on your current or alternative location
• Habitat
• Shape of the bird
• Plumage

This generates a shortlist for you to make an identification. One need not use all the available selections, and if you are not sure, you may pick a number of options within any group.

Additional ID modules also help you identify Sounds, Nests and Eggs.

BIRDING SITES

The Birding Site module includes 290 birding sites from around southern Africa. The sites can be viewed by selecting from the list or using My Location to load the map with nearby birding sites.

The birding site banner is used to load the bird list or open the birding site page.

The birding site page can be swiped for more photos and scrolled up to read the text. The text can be resized to a larger font.

Tap on the image to load the toolbar functions. These include:

• Previous Site
• Show on map
• Load bird list for the site
• Load weather for the site
• Next Site
• Return to Home Page

MY LISTS

My Lists is a powerful module for keeping track of your bird lists. My List is by default your Life List (the first time you see a bird). You can use My List as a list on its own, or have sub-lists report to My List.

Adding to your Lists

You add a bird to a list in one of two ways:

• By using ‘Add to List’ from the bird list or family page
• By using Add/Edit from the bird page (to add with editing the sighting details)

Sighting Details

When using Add/Edit, Sighting Details include the Date, Place, GPS data, View, Class of bird, No. of Birds, and your Notes. The GPS data recorded includes the latitude and longitude, altitude and Pentad of the sighting.

List Options

When you set up a list, the List Options of place and date are used as a default for all records added to the list. When you use the 'add to list' function in the main bird list, the record is automatically allocated the place and date from the List Options. This is particularly useful when you are birding at one site for the day. You can also use the Add/Edit function to change the default details for a specific record.

List Options also include:

• Use List Date. If OFF, you get the current date and time. ON is useful for creating an historical list
• Add GPS Automatically. It sometimes takes a while to get a GPS fix, so OFF is quicker. ON is useful for historical lists
• Report to My List. With this ON will add records to My List. Used in conjunction with Allow Multiple Records OFF on My List will keep a strict Life List. Ie a bird will only occur once in your Life List
• Allow Multiple Records lets you add the same bird more than once to a list. This is particularly useful where you are in different locations or birding on different dates, but keeping a single list
• Species Count. If you have allowed multiple records, it counts the number of species and not the number of records

Managing your bird lists functions include:

• Create a new list
• Edit the List Options
• Delete a list
• Export/Import a list
• Set the list as default (tick-box) for adding for list functions

Search all lists for a specific bird name and report these as a list of all records of that species.

Open a Bird List by tapping on the the list name arrow. Here the toolbar functions include:

• View the bird page
• Play the sound
• Edit the Sighting Details
• Delete the Record

Exporting Lists

List can be exported to and imported from iTunes. Your iPhone must be connected to your PC to do this. The exported List is a csv file.

You can also sync your lists to iCloud.