Summer?

Summer seems to have arrived - the swifts are screaming through the air and we've eaten our first home-grown strawberry. The collared doves that live outside our bedroom window are still trying to nest on a thin cable (cute but daft), the pond is full of newts and the insect life is getting going.

Meanwhile, back at the computer, updates to Chirp! Europe and USA are continuing to be released. Apple sneaked the last one out without telling me, so this time I'm checking the status of the updates every few hours in case they do the same thing again. The USA update is going to be a nice one - it adds five species of Oriole to the app and they are such beautiful birds. I have some great birds ready for Europe too as soon as the translations are done.

And finally:

"Great app" - Simon Mayo

What's that? Yes, it's true, Simon Mayo, who I consider to be the best BBC radio presenter, tweeted on Twitter that he thinks Chirp is a great app :D.

Update news

I've been busy for the past few weeks working on our next apps (more on this later!), as well as the usual updates for Chirp! and Chirp! USA. The updates should be out any day now -  they have been with Apple for a week already so it shouldn't take much longer. The last update to Chirp! Europe added the wonderful Golden Oriole and Hoopoe, both birds of southern Europe, so this time, to help balance things out, we are adding the Barn Owl and Little Owl, both relatively common in the UK, France and Germany. I would really like to add some more birds for Scandinavian countries but I need suggestions!

The update to Chirp! USA adds a link to the Macauley Lab of Ornithology "All About Birds" website, probably the best source for information on US birds - identification, life history, distribution maps and 'cool facts'. I've wanted to add this link for some time and I'm really pleased to have it in the app at  last - now, when you hear a bird and find out what it is, you can access all this information about the bird without leaving the app (as long as you have an internet connection).

And finally, Chirp! is now on Facebook! I hope the Facebook page will become a convenient way of keeping in touch, so please become a fan! If you are not on Facebook, don't forget you can follow us on Twitter, post below, or simply email :).