Birdathon 1.5.2 Released

I’m always happy when I can address problems found by users of Birdathon. By sending feedback, you help make this app better—you can send feedback directly in the app by tapping “Settings,” then “About Birdathon” and then tapping “Send Feedback” or you can just send an email directly to birdathon@voyageropen.com.

First off, I had missed the following birds in the Clements checklist, which is used as the basis for all checklists in Birdathon: Common Buzzard, Eastern Shrike-tit, Western Shrike-tit, Northern Shrike-tit, Olive-backed Forest Robin.

Next, if you had created a checklist in a version of Birdathon earlier than 1.5.1, and your checklist had all the birds from Clements v2019, you might have noticed that 277 of those birds ended up in the family “Uncategorized.” This is because Clements v2022 had a large number of changes, including lumps and splits. For version 1.5.2 I have resolved as many of these as I could by associating the lumped or changed bird names with the new names. For example, if you had Southern Caracara on your old list, it’s now an alias for Crested Caracara as it’s been lumped with that species.

I was able to recategorize all but 50 of those species changes. Splits, for example, can’t be easily resolved. For example, Greater Antillean Nightjar was split into Cuban Nightjar and Hispaniolan Nightjar. In that case, I just leave it as Greater Antillean Nightjar and move it to “Uncategorized Birds” to indicate you will need to research the bird to determine which species you observed and then change the name accordingly.

The last change in this version is that after exporting a Summary, you can now import the text file into a new checklist. There are limitations, as the only observation information exported is the count and the date of the first observation for each species. A new checklist created from a summary won’t have any location information, for example.

That’s it! You can update Birdathon by going to the App Store and clicking “Update”.

Birdathon 1.4 now available in the App Store

New icon!

I’m pleased to announce that the long-awaited update to Birdathon is now available in the App Store! This release brings a lot of improvements and refinements that will help make your birding adventures more productive and more fun.

Map Improvements

First off—Maps. The previous version had county boundaries that often stopped at the shoreline. Birdathon 1.4 uses the latest United States Geological Survey (USGS) TIGER/Line 2019 Shapefiles for all US states and territories. These new county lines are much more accurate than before. Here are a couple examples:

Birdathon v1.3. Notice the gap in the middle of the San Francisco Bay and the county boundaries hugging the coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

Birdathon v1.4. All of the San Francisco Bay is now within county boundaries. Counties now extend out to sea.

This closeup of the area around the mouth of San Francisquito Creek—the boundary between Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, paints a more accurate picture of what’s happening in this location. A note of caution though: certain details of this boundary do not match the counties’ versions, so you should always check with local experts for your county if you are unsure.

Birdathon v1.3 with shore-hugging county boundaries

Birdathon v.1.4 with more accurate county boundaries

Next, there is a new feature in maps: Custom Overlays. You can now display kml or kmz files on your maps. Typically you would make those files in Google Earth or another application and import them into Birdathon. Three examples come with the app. One is the San Jose Christmas Bird Count (CBC) Count Circle with sectors. It looks like this:

View fullsize

San Jose CBC Sector map overlay

So now, if you were participating in a Christmas Bird Count, you could look on the map in your checklist and know where you were within a specific sector of the CBC circle.

Maps can also show traffic now, which can help when planning your birding routes.

And there’s an option to disable the display of your current location, that pulsing blue circle that shows where you are in the world. Sometimes the blue dot can obscure observations you just made, making it hard to see or adjust them. Turning off Current Location doesn’t affect the recording of bird locations; it will still record your location with each observation.

Birdathon and eBird

Birdathon is great for capturing detailed information of your bird observations. But often, you will want those observations to also be recorded in eBird’s global database. The eBird export feature is now much improved, making it easier to get the data out of Birdathon and into the eBird website.

You can now specify the checklist type, enter the distance traveled in either miles or kilometers, adjust the duration, specify the number of observers and set the location for the checklist.

This information along with the count for each species observed is then exported into a file (or email with an attached file) that you import into the eBird website using the “eBird Record Format (Extended).”

eBird Report View before filling out your details (distance, number of observers, location)

After exporting, you have an option to go straight to eBird’s import page

It’s helpful to know the differences between using Birdathon and using the eBird iOS app. Birdathon records the location of every observation, and whether the bird was seen or heard—that fine-grained detail is lost when exporting and importing into the eBird website. The eBird app has an option for recording your track, which can be viewed (only by you or those with whom you share your checklist) on the website, but it doesn’t show where you saw or heard each individual bird. Exporting from Birdathon and importing into the eBird website adds extra steps to getting the data recorded (whereas with eBird it sends the data directly to the database), eBird’s import feature is hard to navigate on small devices, and sometimes it takes a long time for the eBird website to process your import. You may also want to adjust the location of your checklist after you’ve imported into the eBird website if you like associating your checklists with eBird Hotspots.

eMail Reports

Another way to get your data out of the Birdathon app is via an email report. You now have full control over every part of the email report. There are several components you can add or subtract:

• Summary — some details about your checklist such as the duration, number of species observed, a tally of all birds observed, etc.

• Map—a map with all of your birding observations (pins may overlap, but it gives you a good idea of where you observed each bird)

• Timeline—a list of birds in the order you first observed them. You can elect to show the time of each individual observation, or roll them up into a species summary with a count for each one

• Taxonomic List—All of your birds in Family order. You can show or hide family names. You can show or hide the count for each bird (sometimes you just want a list of species)

You’ll see a preview so you can see the effect of playing with all the options. Below is an example with a couple options toggled off. You can send as an email, or save as a file to iCloud.

Email Checklist Report with a couple options toggled off

The email that results from setting those options

More Stuff

Incrementing by threes. You can also type “blph 3” in the search field

The Checklist View now lets you add a number in the search field to easily bump the count of a species. For example, typing "3 blph" in the search field, then tapping on the seen button for Black Phoebe will increment the seen count by 3. Typing the number last, as in "blph 3," also works.

Rarity is now also shown when you tap on a bird—this can help keep you from logging the wrong bird (like that time I reported a rare Northern Shrike instead of our regular Loggerhead Shrike).

Individual observations. Observation notes will carry over into eBird and email reports

The species Detail View has been reorganized to highlight individual observations and allow you to add notes to each observation. Observation notes will be included alongside species notes in eBird and email reports. You can also easily switch an observation between seen & heard by tapping on the seen or heard icon. Setting the location of an observation by dragging a map pin is easier now and there is an option for typing in latitude & longitude.

Other changes:

• Main view now shows the total number of checklists at the top or the number of matching checklists during searches

• Can now switch templates after creating a checklist

• Easier to add a bird from Clements Birds of the World 

• Easier to add "spuhs," e.g. "blackbird sp."

• Easier to add an animal or other non-bird observation

• Tapping the list total at the bottom of the Checklist View now brings up statistics for your list (total species, total tally, time started, duration)

• Added a Setting to turn off section headers for Family (Taxonomic) and Alphabetic sorting

• Added a "One Tap" Setting that allows you to increment a bird by tapping the checkbox to the left of its name. Useful for quickly tallying birds in a checklist

• New icon

• Other bug fixes, performance and user interface improvements

Mood-Log 2.0 is here!

The latest version of Mood-Log is now available in the App Store and it has two big changes: iPad support and a Privacy Screen. In addition, there are many smaller changes as described below

iPad Support

Previous versions of Mood-Log were iPhone-only, which meant that when you ran it on an iPad, it did not take full advantage of the screen space. Mood-Log 2.0 is fully compatible, which means it uses the full screen, and it plays well with other applications. For example, you can use the iPad’s split-screen functionality to run Mood-Log alongside other applications. A large screen means that more information can be shown in the list view, so you’ll now see the Mood diagram (pie chart) and Factors charts for each of your entries.

Full screen and two variations of Split-screen iPad views

On the larger screen of the iPad, you can see a lot more moods at a time. This can be helpful if you’re trying to figure out how you’re feeling and want to see more choices at once. Remember you can choose to view the Moods by category, alphabetically or randomly (by tapping the buttons on the bottom left of the screen), and you can choose to show fewer or more mood faces by sliding the slider down there.

Moods by Category. Use the “Fewer—More” slider along the bottom to adjust how many moods are shown.

Moods shown randomly. Note that you can also turn off colors or faces (the buttons at bottom right) to adjust the mood picker’s look to your taste.

Like the new iPad view, the iPhone’s list view also now shows Mood diagrams for each entry, right below each entry’s date, helping to give you a better understanding of how you were feeling then. While we’re on the topic of Mood diagrams, we now support showing the diagram as either a Pie chart or a Donut chart. So pick your preference!

Pie chart Mood diagrams

Donut chart Mood diagrams

And how do you pick your preference? By using the new Settings window. Look for the gear icon along the bottom of the screen. In Settings, you’ll see the option to switch between Pie and Donut charts, and you’ll also see the other big feature of Mood-Log 2.0: the Privacy Screen.

Mood-Log’s new Settings window

Privacy Screen

There may be times when someone is using your iPhone or iPad and you’d like to keep your Mood-Log journal entries private. The Privacy Screen allows you to cover the contents of Mood-Log until you type in a 4-digit code.

Whenever you go to another App or the Home Screen and then return to Mood-Log, the Privacy Screen will come up, preventing anyone else from viewing your journal entres. Note that you can also hide the Privacy Screen by typing your device’s Passcode (where it says “Enter Code or Tap Here”) so if someone else knows your passcode, they have the ability to see your Mood-Log entries. The Privacy Screen cannot completely prevent access to the data in Mood-Log, but it keeps it from being unintentionally visible, and helps ensure that only you or those you choose can see what you write in Mood-Log.

You activate the Privacy Screen by tapping on the gear icon at the bottom of the main list view to get to Settings. When you tap the switch in Settings, you will be asked to type in a 4-digit code, then type it again to verify that you typed it correctly. From then on, you will see the Privacy Screen any time you leave Mood-Log and come back (such as going to the Home screen and then tapping on Mood-Log). When the Privacy Screen comes up, type that same 4-digit code to dismiss the screen and get back into Mood-Log.

What if you forget your 4-digit code? Just in case you forget your code, you can do the following: When the Privacy Screen comes up, tap where it says “Enter Code or Tap Here”. Type in your device’s Passcode (or use Face ID or Touch ID if they’re enabled). Once in Mood-Log, tap on the gear icon to get to Settings. Tap the switch next to “Privacy Screen” and then type in any four-digit code. You’ll see “Try Again” if you didn’t match your original code. Do it again and it’ll say “Try Again” again. Do it a third time and you’ll see near the bottom of your screen “Disable with Passcode” (note: it may say “Disable with Face ID” or “Disable with Touch ID” depending on the capabilities of your device). Tap that text and you can use your device’s Passcode to disable Mood-Log’s Privacy Screen.

Other Changes

• The text size now adjusts based on your device’s Settings (Settings->Display & Brightness->Text Size or Settings->General->Accessibility->Larger Text). Not all text is changed, but text in the main list view and your journal entries adjust based on what you’ve set for your device

• In the Summary Screen, you can now cycle through each of the individual Factors (All, Mood, Stress, Energy, Mind, Health, Sleep). Just tap on “Factors” and then tap on “All” to begin cycling through the individual items

• In the Summary Screen, “Pie” and “Bar” have been renamed to “Moods” and “Factors” to better describe what they’re displaying

• Fixed auto-layout issues on iPhone 7/8 Plus (full screen instead of popup window for charts in landscape)

• The control for adjusting timeline date ranges draws correctly now

• Automatically scroll to the end of the Summary chart when changing the date range for entries

• The version number for Mood-Log now shows in the About box. This is useful if you’re ever reporting a problem, to make sure you’re using the latest version

• Other bug fixes, layout improvements and little enhancements here and there

Gardening for the Birds

Have you considered planting California native plants in your yard as a way to attract birds? Kathy Kramer has written a wonderful article on this topic for the Golden Gate Audubon Society called “Gardening for the Birds.”

If you’d like to experience native gardens up close, the free “Going Native Garden Tours”, organized by the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society and by the UCCE Master Gardeners, are happening May 4 in the South Bay and May 5 on the Peninsula and in the East Bay. For more information and to register for the tours, go to https://gngt.org/GNGT/HomeRO.php. If you’re in the East Bay, visit https://www.bringingbackthenatives.net. 

Happy birding (and gardening)!

Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society's Spring Birdathon 2019

This year, I am participating in multiple birdathon fundraisers for the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society (SCVAS). If you’re interested in participating, I’m leading a team of beginning-to-expert birders Sunday April 14th for a 4-hour “Big Day” where we try to identify as many species as possible from 8am to Noon. We are the Wandering Kestrels, so sign up and join us if you want to have some birding fun! I’m also joining Team Sharpies for their 24-hour expert-level birdathon, and Ginger & I are doing our own 24-hour birdathon as usual, under the name The Piratical Flycatchers. If you would just like to support SCVAS, consider donating to any of the teams above.

Happy birding,

~Barry Langdon-Lassagne

Birdathon 1.3.2

This was just a quick-turn release to address a crashing bug that could keep some users from accessing their checklists. The problem involved fonts, and appears to have only happened on older versions of iOS. If Birdathon is crashing for you, give this latest update a try. If you’re still having issues, please email support@voyageropen.com and we will investigate.

Birdathon 1.3.1 now available

Birdathon 1.3.1 is now available, addressing some bugs and helping make the app easier to use, especially for first-time users.

First the bug fixes. If you tried to set a custom Rarity for a bird, there was no “Done” button so you couldn’t go back to the bird! That’s fixed. There was also a crashing bug that happened a few steps after searching all lists for a bird. Fixing that crasher also fixed some other weird behavior in the app. In the Summary view, if you had Uncategorized birds, sometimes Birdathon would crash; that’s fixed now too.

As for features, there are a couple interesting ones. The New Checklist view is streamlined and rearranged, making it easier to get started logging bird observations. And when your checklist comes up, the search bar is now visible. If you have a small screen or just don’t want the search field, you can tap on the magnifying glass icon to make it go away and the list remembers your setting. You can also go into Birdathon’s Settings and turn off “Search Bar Visible” to get the old behavior where the Search Bar was hidden unless you tapped the magnifying glass to show it.

New users should now appreciate that when you try to create your first checklist, the “Create List” button is not grayed out. That’s because Birdathon now starts with the ABA Checklist selected by default. Just one less tap and one less thing to be confused by when starting out using the app.

On the maps, the county boundary lines are now drawn ever-so-slightly thicker so they are easier to see on the Satellite and Hybrid map views.

Check out the latest version on the Apple App Store.

Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society is seeking an Executive Director

Our local Audubon chapter—The Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society (SCVAS)—is looking for an Executive Director. SCVAS is a leader in bird education and conservation in the Bay Area, with an enthusiastic and dynamic team of employees and volunteers. Our former Executive Director has retired, so it’s time for new leadership. Are you that leader? Do you know someone who could be? Send your resume and a cover letter to scvasboardpresident@gmail.com today! For more information, go to http://www.scvas.org/pdf/2019_EDOpportunityLong.pdf

Birdathon 1.3 Now Available -- County Lines & Range Circles

Birdathon 1.3 has just been released! Now you can add county boundary lines for any US state to your checklist maps (as well as to the Summary maps) and you can add range circles, making it easy to see Christmas Bird Count (CBC) circles or 5-mile Radius (5MR) circles, as well as other radii from 1/8 mile up to 200 miles (or 100m to 500km). We have also added full-screen iPad support, rotated views (for maps, notes and email reports), the latest ABA and Santa Clara County checklists, and many more features. Check it out now on the Apple App Store.

Map views can now show county lines (Santa Clara County, CA pictured here) and range circles (the San Jose CBC 7.5-mile-radius circle is shown). Also, observations pins are clustered when you are zoomed out on maps.

Here’s the full list of new features:

• County lines for any US county or for all counties in any US state

• Draw circles of specific radius around any point on a map, making things like 5MR (5-mile Radius) and CBC (Christmas Bird Count) circles easy

• Maps now aggregate nearby observations, reducing clutter and making them easier to read. This is on iOS 11 or later

• iPad is now supported, including the ability to show Birdathon side-by-side with other apps such as Safari, The Sibley Guide to Birds, eBird, iNaturalist, etc.

• Support for iOS 9.3 (previous versions only supported as far back as iOS 10). Note that some features (such as pin clustering on maps) are not available in older versions of iOS

• Updated the ABA Checklist to version 8.0.5 (December 2018). This syncs the ABA checklist up with the changes from the AOS checklist, which was revised in August.

• Updated the Santa Clara County Checklist to November 2018. The only change was the addition of LeConte's Sparrow

• Rotation is now supported for many views. This is especially useful for maps, note fields and email reports. On iPad, you can rotate any view

• Checklists now remember which tab (All, Observed, Starred) you have selected, on a per-checklist basis

• When viewing checklists by Observed or Starred, searches now encompass the entire list. This is settable in Settings

• Reorganized Settings for easier customization of Birdathon

• There's a new color picker for choosing color themes for your checklists and a theme name is now shown

• You can now adjust the creation date and time when creating a new checklist, or after you’ve created the checklist via the Checklist Info view

• Non-bird observations now show a count on the map

• You can now view a full-screen map when editing individual observations, making it easier to adjust the pin location

• A new debug setting lets you see the GPS accuracy of the observations recorded. Green rings around map pins for high accuracy, yellow for moderate accuracy and red for low accuracy. You can turn this on under Settings. We have worked to make the GPS coordinates more accurate, so if you are seeing frequent location issues, please email us at birdathon@voyageropen.com with details of the problem

• The Summary view has improved logic for restricting the range (now uses a circular range rather than rectangular) and shows a restricted-range circle on the map

• A bug in the Summary view where non-bird observations were always displaying on the map has been fixed

• When importing a checklist template, it now shows up immediately in the New Checklist view. Previously you had to close and re-open the “New Checklist” view to get the imported template to appear

• Lots of user interface cleanup, tuning and bug fixing

Birdathon 1.2.2 - Some Bug Fixes

This is just a bug fix release. The following bugs have been addressed:

• The summary view was blank when sorting alphabetically (if sorting last name first)
• Fixed incorrect species count for ABA v8.0.4 checklist template
• Fixed a crash when deleting the only non-bird observation in a checklist

Also, when the species count is > 999, we now show commas for the count at the bottom of the checklist (e.g. 25/1,112 birds).

Birdathon 1.2.1

No sooner had we released Birdathon 1.2 with all it's great content, when the ABA released a v8.0.4 update to their checklist. We have just released Birdathon 1.2.1, which includes the new ABA checklist as well as a few other tidbits:

• You can now edit the creation date for your checklists. If you are entering old checklists into Birdathon, this can be useful for ordering them by their original date
• We've added a few new color themes to help you distinguish your checklists (and because they're fun). Two are shades of gray, there's a nice teal and an indigo theme and one more "dark" theme for using at night
• When sorting your lists by Type, there's now an index along the right for easy access to each category. This becomes useful when you have a lot of lists

And lastly, here are a few notes on how to edit your checklists any time you want to add, remove or change birds.

Birdathon 1.2 - Birds of the World

It's summertime, and as is (apparently) tradition, everybody is updating their bird checklist. The ABA got an early start by releasing version 8.0.2 in May with four new species, but then they released another new update (8.0.3) in August with four more. On June 21, the AOS updated their Checklist of North American Birds with many changes as summarized in the ABA Blog. Pyle and DeSante updated the four-letter Alpha codes on July 24. Clements updated their Birds of the World on August 14. eBird, keeping in sync with Clements, updated their taxonomy on August 15. While all these changes were going on, we have been working on updating Birdathon. The goal of this release is to expand Birdathon to cover all the birds of the world. To do this, we started with the latest Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, which contains 10,585 species. Birdathon previously only covered the AOS checklist which has 2,143 species, so this was a big jump. After making sure Birdathon worked well with the expanded list, we folded in the most up-to-date information from the AOS, ABA and Pyle/DeSante checklists.

Today Birdathon 1.2 is available in the Apple App Store. You can now create checklists for any place on Earth. We've posted some sample checklists for you to try out. You can make your own checklists just by creating a text file of birds by Common Name and importing it into Birdathon -- the additional information such as Scientific Name, Family, etc. will be automatically added.

But there's more: you can now sort your birds by Rarity. The ABA checklist defines rarity codes for the 1,111 species found in North America and these are included in Birdathon. You can also set a Custom Rarity for each bird in a checklist and then sort by that. The included Santa Clara County Checklist template already has Custom Rarity codes as defined on the SCVAS website , so you can see how it works by creating a list from that template and then sorting by Custom Rarity. You can also make your own checklist templates containing Custom Rarity.

Within each Rarity category, birds are sorted in taxonomic order. You can change the sort order to be alphabetical in Settings (go to the "About" window, then tap the small gear icon). Non-bird Observations and Notes appear in the list after all the birds.

While we're on the topic of sorting alphabetically, Birdathon also improved Alphabetical sorts. Now birds are sorted by "last name" (e.g. "Black-crowned Night-Heron" is sorted under "N" for "Night-Heron"). Other items such as non-bird observations and notes still sort by first letter as before. You can set Alphabetical sorting behavior (Last Name or First Name) in Settings as well.

There are other changes and bug fixes, but those are the big ones. Give Birdathon 1.2 a try and tell us what you think.

Happy birding!

And now, Birdathon 1.1.1

The American Birding Association (ABA) did a mid-year update of their checklist, so we took the opportunity to update Birdathon along with it. Birdathon 1.1.1 includes the new ABA Checklist version 8.0.2 (May 2018) which contains four new species for the range it covers: Indian Peafowl, (Eurasian) River Warbler, Thick-billed Warbler and European Robin. For more information on the additions, see their post in the ABA blog. In addition, the maps in Birdathon have been updated to distinguish regular bird sightings from notes, non-birds and indeterminate birds.

In the Summary view (new in the previous release), Family order now shows members of the family sorted by observed count, so you can easily see, for example, which warbler you saw most frequently. Also, there were some bug fixes for the Summary view:

• Indefinite sightings (those with a '?') no longer show on the map unless the option to show them is on
• Old bird checklists now show all their members in the correct family
• A bug where birds could be listed with a 0 or negative count if you restrict the geographic range is fixed.

Lastly, the options for Summary view had a bug where the text was truncated on some iPhones. There were other minor tweaks and fixes. Let us know if you find any issues.

Birdathon 1.1 is now available in the App Store

We've enhanced Birdathon with a few new features we think you'll find useful: Global Search allows you to find a species in any of your lists, a Summary view aggregates information from all of your lists and there is a new setting to automatically clear the search field after you've entered observation data for a bird. Check it out in the App Store or read on for more details. Global Search

At the top of the Main view in Birdathon is a new search field. All of your lists can now be searched together. You can search for  common name or four-letter banding code, just as you can when you're in a single checklist. When you tap on a found list, you see the matches for your search in that list and can get additional details like where and when the bird was observed.

[video width="406" height="720" poster="http://voyageropen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Global-Search-1.png"][/video]

Summary View

At the bottom of the Main view is an icon (  ) that brings up a new Summary view. This view shows you aggregated observation information from all of your lists. You can sort by family, alphabetically, by time seen and by count. You can adjust the timeframe to show only birds observed in a particular window of time (such as this week, month, year, etc.), and display a map showing the location of all your bird observations in that time period.

Tapping on a bird will show you all of the lists that contain observations of that species and when you first observed that species in each list. The map icon will bring up a map showing everywhere you've seen that species.

Within the Summary view is an option for limiting the geographic range of your Summary, so for example you can see a list of all birds you've observed within one mile of your home or of a favorite wildlife preserve. Ranges can be adjusted from 1/4 mile up to 10 miles.

The Summary view also lets you export your summary data  as a comma-separated-values (csv) text file, and you can turn any summary into a checklist template.

As an example: in the Summary view, turn on the option to limit the Geographic Range to within one mile of the center of a park. Show all the birds you've ever recorded at that park. Now Tap the Share button and choose "Create Template from Summary." Once you've done this, any time you visit that park, when you create a new list you can start with the checklist template you created, so your list will only show birds you expected to see at that location (if you do see a species that isn't in a checklist, you can easily add it to that checklist using the "+" button).

[video width="304" height="540" mp4="http://voyageropen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Template-from-Summary.mp4" poster="http://voyageropen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Template-from-Summary.png"][/video]

If you have lists that you don't want included in the Summary view, you can exclude them by going into the checklist, tapping on the Info icon () and then scrolling to the bottom to toggle the switch "Include List in Summaries".

Clearing Searches

Although standard iOS search fields leave the text in place after a search, when birding this behavior can sometimes slow you down. Once you've added a bird observation, you are usually ready to move on to the next species, so now you can set an option to clear the search field each time you search and add an observation.

After you've turned on the "Clear Search" setting, whenever you search for a bird and then increment the seen or heard count, the search field clears. You can then quickly type in a new bird name and enter your next observation.

Birdathon 1.1 has a few other bug fixes worth mentioning:

• When you change the name of a list, the new name shows up immediately. It used to show the old name until you closed and re-opened the list
• Searching for birds whose name contains an apostrophe (') now works correctly
• In the Main view, the "+" button has been renamed to "New List"
• ABA Checklist version in the About box is now correct (v8.0.1, the latest)
• Fixed a bug where the year may display incorrectly on December 31

Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society's Spring Birdathon 2018

The inspiration for the Birdathon app is the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society's annual Spring Birdathon fundraiser. We are participating this year under the name "The Piratical Flycatchers" and invite you to support the cause! This will be my first year using the released version of the app; I used an early beta of it last year.

Mood-Log 1.5

Mood-Log has just been updated for iOS 11 and the iPhone X. In addition to bug fixes and refinements to the interface, there are a couple new features:

• The Summary and Charts pages now include a control at the top that let's you specify a time range for the data. For example, you can view charts for the past day, 7 days, 28 days or all entries. A sliding control lets you pick specific ranges of dates, so you could for example see how you were feeling last December.
• When adding additional factors to your Mood-Log entry, you can now slide the bars on the chart up and down directly. Sliding the sliders will update the chart, and sliding the chart will update the sliders.