Media Release
Auckland University Press
11 December 2013
‘Birds of New Zealand’ flies on to the iPhone
Auckland University Press has just released its first app, based on the popular photographic guideBirds of New Zealandby Paul Scofield and Brent Stephenson.
The interactive Birds of New Zealand app is unique in this market. It is the only complete collection of all 365 species
in New Zealand available for smartphones and tablets and has specific features to enhance the birding experience.
Birdwatchers can personalise their app with their own observations, building their own list of bird sightings and
storing it on their device or exporting it via email. The ‘Bird Compare’ feature allows them to compare two birds on the
same screen (including recordings of variant bird calls) and Smart Search functionality supports bird identification by
bird type, size, colour, physical features and habitat and can displayinformation on a region by region basis.
‘When traveling and on the road, the app is fantastic to quickly refer to,’ says Brent Stephenson, photographer forBirds of New Zealand. ‘It has all the text, photos, and distribution maps from the book, but probably the most useful feature in the field
will be the audio clips now included.’
Author Paul Scofield says, ‘Now that more and more people are using smartphones every day, the identification of New
Zealand birds should become much easier for everyone from dedicated experts to amateur birders.
‘This will increase the opportunity for members of the general public to make remarkable findings, such as the recent
instance that brought the reclassification of the thought-to-be-extinct, South Island kokako.’
If anyone thinks they have spotted something rare or unusual, they can report their discovery to the Records Appraisal
Committee of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, which independently verifies sightings of rare birds from New
Zealand.
It was exciting for Auckland University Press to make theBirds of New Zealand content available as a book but it’s been an even greater adventure to take it into a completely different dimension.
Press Director Sam Elworthy says, ‘Birds of New Zealand is already a roaring success as a book and we reckon many birders will also want to own the app as well because of the
cool functionality the Mydigitalearth team put into their software. The ability to narrow a search down to a likely
species, to use sound as well as words and images for identification, and to do it all on your phone or tablet is pretty
miraculous. It’s great to end 2013 with a great app in the market as well as a huge pile of ebooks – digital publishing
has really arrived at Auckland University Press this year.’
The Birds of New Zealand app was developed by Mydigitalearth. It is now available from the Apple app store at a price of
$US 29.99 ($NZ 38.99). Android and Windows versions will be available shortly.
ENDS