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| June 2004 |
Feature |
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Bird viewing in southern Africa has just gone electronic
The Sasol e.BIRDS of Southern Africa Pocket PC application is here. It is a mobile version of the best-selling Sasol Birds of Southern Africa field guide. This electronic field guide is stored on a 128 MB memory card and was written and developed for use on a compact, palm-sized HP Pocket PC. This is a walking, talking, interactive field guide. It fits neatly in your pocket; it goes where you go. e.BIRDS "talks" to you. Over 540 "talking" birdcalls are just a click away. And it is interactive. Whether you are an amateur of pro, you can not only confirm the accuracy of bird sightings, but store information such as location, species and number of sightings along with your notes. e.BIRDS comes with colour plates of all 950 bird species featured in Sasol Birds of Southern Africa and can be individually called up on the pocket PC screen. Distribution maps of birds which can help narrow your identification or give you a guide as to what bird species to expect to see in a particular region, are readily called up on the screen. Then ofcourse there is the audible birdcalls derived from the Len Gillard collection to aid in bird identification. But the extra feature here is that you could also record birdcalls in the field for later research and identification purposes. And while searching family lists, you can view that in either English or Afrikaans. Sasol e.BIRDS was developed over the past year by Randburg based PDA Solutions, making use of the combined efforts of electronics expert Robert Hannaford together, with Swiss businessman, Otto Werdmuller von Ellg, and environmental book stockist, Russell Friedman. "There's nothing like this programme in the world," Hannaford stated. "It makes birding less daunting than ever before and should lead to large-scale conversion to the hobby. In the past few weeks, dozens of personal contacts - who had never owned a bird guide - have invested in Sasol e.BIRDS and are raving about their birding adventures in the bush." Werdmuller von Ellg said the programme has incredible potential. "New versions could in future, for example, incorporate all the birds of sub-Saharan Africa as well as overseas regions. The pocket PC tends to go wherever you go, so unexpected bird sightings now need never catch a birder without his or her bird books on hand. The pocket PC will, of course, also have the usual standard features such as address book, calender, Pocket Excel and Microsoft Word, as well as active sync to the owner's PC." The programme is not static either. PDA Solutions will regularly revise and update Sasol e.BIRDS on the PDA website for authorised users to download and install on their pocket PC. For example, as new sounds become available they can be downloaded free of charge from the PDA website. So before you go birding next, you may want to go shopping first. Sasol e.BIRDS will be distributed by PDA Solutions, Russell Friedman Books, and BirdLife SA. The eBirds programme can be bundled with a PDA(HP iPAQ 1940/1930), or the memory card + program can be purchased separately if you already have a pocket PC. System Requirements are a PDA with 200Mhz or faster processor, SD Memory card expansion slot/sleeve and Microsoft Pocket PC 2003 Operating System. More information:
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Copyright 2002, Science in Africa, Science magazine for Africa CC. All Rights Reserved
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Have you ever heard a birdcall, perhaps at night and wondered what it was? Or
have you seen one and not been able to identify it? If you are bird-watching
in Southern Africa, you are now in very good hands with the launch of e.BIRDS,
birding at the click of a button.