Collins Bird Guide App

The Collins Bird Guide to the birds of Britain and Europe has been my favourite guide for several years. It is the gold standard of field guides.

It is now available as an iOS app: The Collins Bird Guide App combines world-class illustrations and comprehensive information with intuitive design to create the ultimate field guide for passionate birders and casual birdwatchers alike. The innovative design lets you swipe through over 700 species quickly and intuitively, whether you are at home or in the field. You can use the search tool to quickly identify a bird by location, time of year or attributes.

You can browse through the beautiful illustrations by Killian Mullarney and Dan Zetterström and read the detailed text by Lars Svensson. And you can compare your sighting to a curated list of similar species, expertly arranged for ease of use.

The app costs £12.99 and is worth every penny. For this price you can download onto five iOS devices. I already have it loaded on iPhone 5S, iPad and iPad Mini. The graphics are stunning, particularly on the iPad.

This is, without a doubt, the best app by a country mile for anyone interested in bird identification.