Bird identification app created by high school students

Forty high school students at La Valira Institute in the northwestern Catalan town of La Seu d’Urgell close to Andorra, have created a mobile app that helps with the identification of 15 birds whose primary habitat is in the highlands region.

The app, entitled ‘Flying’ is the result of an interdisciplinary project that the students had been working on for ten days before the Christmas holidays and is available for Android users. They hope the app will become known amongst residents of the mountain town, located deep in the Catalan Pyrenees, and intend to ask the local tourist office to publicise it to visitors.

Indeed, La Seu d’Urgell and surrounding area is an ideal location for birdwatchers, specifically around the Valira river as it passes through the town itself. Using the ‘Flying’ app, it will be possible to identify 15 of the most characteristic birds in the area. 

High aspirations

The students, who learned how to programme, design, and create a mobile application, are now also considering the possibility of developing and incorporating, among other ideas, a geolocation system within the app.

The objective of the creation of ´Flying´, according to professor of technology at the college, Marc Llovera, was for teenagers to work in an “integrated and multidisciplinary” way, more in line with a business environment rather than the usual system employed in the classroom.

The app, available for purchase on Google’s Play Store for €0.99, is available in four languages, and includes descriptions of each of the fifteen birds, such as the white wagtail and the common kingfisher.