Site header

On the left, Mike Marshall’s photo of a Mountain Bluebird perched on a branch beside a pine trunk, in a slightly tilted white Polaroid-style print captioned Mountain Bluebird. From the print’s edge the photo breaks into a curving stream of colored pixel squares, light streaks and binary code that arcs across the dark teal background and gathers in a soft glow at an iPhone on the right showing the FeatherDex species grid, landing on the same bluebird’s badge. Centered between them, above the arc, are the FeatherQuest logo, a thin gold rule and the word FeatherDex in aqua italic

Getting Started With FeatherDex

From your photo library to your first species badges

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Connect Your Photos

Start where your bird photos already live

Apple Photos is the easiest place to start, because your dates, locations and albums are already there. When iOS asks, you can give FeatherDex access to your whole library or to selected photos only, and you can point it at one album, like your bird album.

Add Source connects a place FeatherDex keeps checking for new bird photos: Apple Photos, Google Photos, Google Drive, or a Files folder. Add Photos is a one-time import from Files or Apple Photos.

Photos from Google Photos, Google Drive, or iCloud are downloaded to your phone so FeatherDex can look at them. That’s retrieving your photos, not uploading them. More on privacy.

If a photo shouldn’t count, exclude it, and it stays out of your collection.

FeatherDex Add Source sheet listing Apple Photos, Google Drive, Google Photos, and Browse for files
Connect a Source

Let FeatherDex Find the Birds

Every bird in every photo, numbered
FeatherDex Birds list for a photo of rosy-finches: four numbered bird cards with suggestions such as Black Rosy-Finch at 99.2 percent and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch at 74.3 percent, one card set to the family Finches, Euphonias, and Allies with a gold star, and Highlight Birds and Add bird controls
One Photo, Many Birds

FeatherDex looks for every bird in each photo, numbers them, and suggests a species for each one. The on-device bird ID is powered by AVES, and it uses the photo’s date and location to help. It all happens on your phone.

A photo with a flock gets a card for each bird, so you can confirm them one at a time. If FeatherDex missed one, add it yourself.

Big library? FeatherDex works through it a batch at a time, shows its progress, and picks up where it left off. You can pause anytime.

Review Each Suggestion

Suggestions are a starting point, not a verdict

Nothing joins your collection as a sure thing until you say so. For each bird you can:

  • Confirm the species when you agree
  • Change Species to compare the top suggestions, or search for the one you know it is
  • Choose just the family when that’s all you can tell from the photo
  • Mark Unknown and come back to it later
  • Remove a box that isn’t a bird, or exclude the whole photo

Clear photos work best, and you can change your mind anytime.

Build Your Collection

Confirmed birds become badges, pages, and a life list

Each species you confirm gets its own page with all your photos of it, and a badge cut from one of them. Your best shots rise to the top, and bursts can stack into a single tile.

Already keep a life list in eBird? Import it so your Seen and Heard records and dates are there from day one.

Then make it yours: frame your badges, rate your favorites, and filter for photo goals. Explore the features.

FeatherDex photo grid of species, each labeled: American Avocet with a stack badge of 3, Cassin’s Finch, Downy Woodpecker, Canada Jay, Pied-billed Grebe, Snowy Egret, American Wigeon, and Golden-crowned Kinglet with a stack badge of 2
Your Photos, by Species

Explore FeatherDex

FeatherDex Home

The short tour: what FeatherDex is and how it works.

Features

Badges, ratings, stacks, search and filters, your life list, locations, and photo credits.

eBird Import

Bring your eBird life list in, step by step, and review it before it’s saved.

Privacy

On-device bird ID, untouched originals, and when FeatherDex uses the internet.

FAQ

Answers about photos, identification, eBird, and the beta.

Help Shape FeatherDex

Now in beta on iPhone
FeatherDex by FeatherQuest logo

We’re inviting bird photographers and birders to test FeatherDex on iPhone. Explore your collection, find the rough edges, and help us make something worth using every day.

Joining puts you on the FeatherDex beta waitlist. It isn’t instant access: when we’re ready for you, we’ll email you an invitation to install the beta with TestFlight, Apple’s app for testing new iPhone apps. Sign-up uses the FeatherQuest email list, so you may also hear about new Quests and Guides. Unsubscribe anytime.

Join the iPhone Beta

Questions or ideas? We’d love to hear them. Contact us.