Getting started
Installing Bird Journal, creating your account, and what happens the first time you sign in on a second device.
Updated
Install Bird Journal
Go to birdjournal.com on the device you want it on. On Windows and Mac you get a download button; on an iPhone, iPad or Android device you get a link to the App Store or Google Play. There is also a web app, if you would rather not install anything.
Create an account
You only do this once, on any one of the apps. You are asked for an email address, a password, your name and your country.
Everybody starts with the world’s locations and the Bird Journal and Wildlife Recorder record formats. Your country then decides the rest: the checklist for your country, the taxonomy behind it — Birds of the World (Clements) in the Americas, Birds of the World (AviList) elsewhere — and, where one exists for your language, a pack of local names. In the UK you also get the BirdTrack record format, and anywhere Clements is the default you get the eBird one.
None of that is a limit. Anything else in the library can be installed whenever you like, on a free account as much as a paid one.
Sign in everywhere else
The same email address and password sign you in on every other device. The first sync brings your journal down and can take up to ten minutes on a phone, so it is worth doing over wi-fi and leaving it to finish.
Forgotten the password? Use Forgotten Password on the sign-in screen and we will email you a link to reset it.
After that
Everything stays in step on its own. Records you add on one device appear on the others; install something from the library and it is installed on all of them. Photos are the one thing fetched as you look at them rather than all at once — Tools ▸ Download All Photos brings them down in advance if you are going somewhere without a signal.
Add your first entry with the New Entry button, which is a + on a phone or tablet. Entering observations walks through the screen.
Coming from Bird Journal 1, 2 or 3?
Your old records come across automatically when the account is created — but only if you create it on the Windows computer that holds them. How that works is worth reading before you sign up.