Gotta watch ‘em all? Pokémon-style app for birdwatching launches

A new app has launched that aims to gamify birdwatching by allowing people to collect digital cards of UK bird species whenever they record seeing one.Users of Birdex accumulate points for each bird they see, with less common and rare species yielding the greatest rewards. It is possible to add friends and compete over bird sightings. The app has got birdwatchers talking online – though it has raised hackles among some for its use of AI-generated artwork.“Birds are great,” said Harry Scott, 24, one of the developers behind the app, who works in marketing. He and a collaborator built the app as a side project over a period of six months and he said the idea was to layer a rewards-based experience over birdwatching with a view to engaging young people in nature“I think birdwatching and Pokémon do share a lot of similarities,” he added. But does using a smartphone to tot up bird sightings not mean screens getting in the way of nature? “I think it’s more about using technology … as a tool to learn,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure that that screen time [people are] having is a lot more positive.”One Birdex user, Michelle Williams, a psychologist in London, said she enjoyed using the app to record garden birds such as robins with her two children aged seven and eight. “This is an opportunity to get out and help them engage with nature,” she said. “There is something nice about collecting a set, isn’t there?”However, some have criticised the app’s developers for using AI to generate depictions of birds. “If the art is AI it’s an instant uninstall, sorry,” wrote one Reddit user.Scott said they used AI in various ways during development because they had limited funds but they plan to hire artists in the future. The app is currently free to use, though some content or features may eventually be paywalled.To date, users of Birdex have counted appearances of more than 200,000 birds. There could be a citizen science impact if those records are made available to bodies such as the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), said Viola Ross-Smith, a science communications manager at the trust. The BTO has its own app, BirdTrack, for recording bird sightings.Ross-Smith said Birdex was “pretty engaging” and her son, a fan of Pokémon, “thought it looked quite cool”. But she questioned whether it might come with some risks for birds if people were encouraged to seek out vulnerable species such as the capercaillie, a rare, large woodland grouse that lives in parts of Scotland.It is illegal to disturb capercaillies during their nesting season and visitors to the Cairngorms have frequently been warned not to go looking for them. Ross-Smith suggested Birdex could include such warnings.