Birdwatching in real time from the comfort of your couch

Enthusiasts are going on virtual journeys via Google Street View to spot the feathered creatures

Adelie penguins (above) in Antarctica and sooty terns (below) in flight on Laysan Island, part of the Hawaiian chain of islands, are some of the birding possibilities on offer via Google Street View. Virtual birdwatching may be more comfortable, but
Adelie penguins (above) in Antarctica and sooty terns in flight on Laysan Island, part of the Hawaiian chain of islands, are some of the birding possibilities on offer via Google Street View. Virtual birdwatching may be more comfortable, but it is not always easier due to the lack of resolution in most images. PHOTOS: SCREENSHOTS FROM GOOGLE STREET VIEW
Adelie penguins (above) in Antarctica and sooty terns (below) in flight on Laysan Island, part of the Hawaiian chain of islands, are some of the birding possibilities on offer via Google Street View. Virtual birdwatching may be more comfortable, but
Adelie penguins in Antarctica and sooty terns (above) in flight on Laysan Island, part of the Hawaiian chain of islands, are some of the birding possibilities on offer via Google Street View. Virtual birdwatching may be more comfortable, but it is not always easier due to the lack of resolution in most images. PHOTOS: SCREENSHOTS FROM GOOGLE STREET VIEW

The Covid-19 pandemic may be keeping birdwatchers off the jungle trails, but many are continuing to look for their feathered friends across the continents and the oceans - right from the comfort of home.

They do this by taking virtual journeys on Google Street View - a free application on the Google Maps and Google Earth platforms that provides panoramas from positions along many streets in the world.

"The group started because birders just can't help being birders," Mr Nick Lund, 37, told The Straits Times. He started the Google Street View Birding group on Facebook, which now has more than 4,000 members around the world - including birdwatchers from Singapore.

"I found that there were plenty of crazy birders willing to join me, and together we've scoured the globe and identified more than 1,100 different species of birds," said Mr Lund, who is an outreach and network manager at Maine Audubon, a wildlife conservation organisation.

Birding over the Internet offers many possibilities, including the chance to see birds one has never seen before.

Avid birdwatchers may argue that such virtual sightings do not count as "lifers" - sightings of a species one has never seen before - although this reporter managed to spot a red-footed booby for the first time on the Galapagos Islands' Isla Genovesa.

Birding over Google Street View may be more comfortable than swatting bugs while trekking through vegetation, but it is not always easier.

The lack of resolution in most of the images makes seeing and identifying tiny birds difficult, said Mr Lund.

Yet this has also brought the global birding community closer.

"I think the most interesting part is when birders from around the world discuss challenging IDs," said Singaporean ornithologist David Tan, 31, referring to the identification of birds from screenshots.

Mr Tan, a PhD student at the University of New Mexico in the United States and a member of the Google Street View Birding group, said: "There are lots of discussions on posts where the bird is not easily identifiable, so you get people whose expertise lies in different regions helping to identify a mystery bird. That's part of the birding experience too."

The birdwatchers in the group have compiled a species list of more than 1,200 birds on a spreadsheet.

The entries are sorted according to the common and scientific names of the birds, the coordinates where they were found, as well as the names of the people who spotted them.

The identities of the birds are fact-checked by the other members of the group, said Mr Tan, much like the peer review process of most scientific studies.

Identification is not always clear-cut as on Google Street View, the animals can appear blurry and indistinct. "You'll have to base your identification on what evidence you have," Mr Tan said.

For example, there could be discussions about distinguishing characteristics on the feathers, eyes or tails.

Mr Tan, whose doctoral research is on a group of songbirds called pittas, said: "For example, one of the key field marks for identifying a Javan myna is the bright yellow bill and the absence of bare skin around its eyes. This helps distinguish it from the crested myna or the common myna."

There are so far four entries from Singapore - a black-nest swiftlet, buffy fish owl, Javan myna and a red collared-dove.

Mr Lund said people can participate simply by "looking" around familiar areas, such as places near their homes where birds have been spotted.

"Scan around in Street View, looking closely at tiny blobs on telephone wires or by the roadside, and see what you can find," he said.

"The other way is to pick an exotic location and scan there, using reports from eBird.org to see what birds have been seen in that area in the past."

Singapore conservationist Yong Ding Li, 36, started his virtual birding journey earlier this week, when he was cross-checking a location on Google Maps for a report and stumbled upon a bird.

"I checked it out on Google Street View and saw a bird on the screen," he said.

Since then, he has come across flamingos in Dubai, albatrosses in Svalbard, Norway, and penguins in Antarctica.

He said: "It's better than a computer game - the birds are real!"

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 30, 2020, with the headline Birdwatching in real time from the comfort of your couch. Subscribe