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Life Observer

Every sighting counts. Keep them all.

Log what you see — birds, mammals, insects, plants, fungi — identify it from a photo, and build a life list that is yours to keep.

Three things it does

A field notebook that does not lose pages, with an identification service attached.

Photograph it

Upload a photo and Life Observer suggests what it is — with the field marks it keyed on, so you can check the reasoning rather than take its word.

Keep the record

Common and scientific name, where, when, how many, and your own notes. Your life list counts each species once and keeps every sighting.

Decide who sees it

Every sighting is private until you say otherwise. Share one with a friend, send a link to someone with no account, or post it to the community.

Identification, with its working shown

Most apps hand you a name and a percentage. This one tells you which marks in your photograph point at that answer, and says so plainly when a photo cannot settle the question — an Empidonax flycatcher without a recording is a genus, not a species, and the suggestion will say so.

Suggestions are suggestions. You choose what goes on the record, and you can overrule it.

How it works

Example suggestion

Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis
91% · high

Rufous dorsal tail surface, dark patagial bars on the leading edge of the underwing, and a streaked belly band.

Red-shouldered Hawk Buteo lineatus
31% · very low

Banded tail and pale wingtip crescents would be expected; not clearly shown here.

Juvenile Buteos are routinely confused at this angle.

Your coordinates stay yours

On location. You see your own sightings at the exact spot you recorded. Everyone else — a friend you share with, anyone holding a link, the public feed — sees the centre of a grid cell about a kilometre across. A sighting in your garden is your address, and precise coordinates for a rare species are precisely what collectors want. Coarsening is on by default and there is no switch to turn it off.

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