Accurate sightings

Every bird you log goes onto a map that all birders share. The pin, the date, and the time are public — they show up in the Feed, on the Explore map, and on your profile. That shared record is only as good as it is accurate, so we ask one thing of everyone: log each bird where and when you actually saw it.

Four satellite maps in a grid. The two on the left each show every pin piled onto a single building and are marked with a red cross. The two on the right show pins spread across a reserve and strung along a route, and are marked with a green tick. — Left: a batch of birds all dropped at one spot — home. Right: pins where the birds were actually seen. Aim for the right.

The pin and time are automatic

When you quick-add a bird, Bïndo stamps it with your GPS location and the current time — so logging in the field is accurate by default. Tap a species' ⊕ and you're done.

You only set the place or time by hand when you're recording a bird after the fact. Long-press the ⊕ to open the custom sighting form and set the real date, time, and place — tap the map where you saw the bird, or paste its coordinates. See Logging sightings for the full form.

Why it matters

Other birders rely on your pins.
A pin is a promise that the bird was there. Birders use Explore to decide where to go and what to look for, so a misplaced pin sends them to the wrong place.

It feeds the bigger picture.
Sightings contribute to range and distribution data, target-species lists, and area records. A bird logged from the sofa quietly distorts all of it.

It keeps your own records honest.
Accurate dates and places make your life list, year list, and trips something you can trust and look back on.

Logging a batch from one place

The one habit to avoid is logging a stack of species from home — or any single spot — when you actually saw them elsewhere. Birders call it sofa logging. The species may be right, but the wrong place and time make the record misleading for everyone who sees it.

Birding without signal is fine: Bïndo logs offline and syncs later, keeping each pin where you dropped it. And when you genuinely need to enter a past sighting, the custom sighting form is exactly what it's for — set its real date and location.

If your profile is set to private

If a run of sightings looks like it was added in a batch rather than where and when each bird was seen, the team may temporarily set your profile to private and email you. While it's private, other birders can't see your sightings or lists.

To put it right, either:

Delete those sightings and re-add them in the field as you see birds, or
Edit each sighting's date and location to match where you actually saw it — open the sighting, open its actions menu, and tap Edit (see Logging sightings).

Then reply to the email and the team will restore your profile to public. If you think it was flagged by mistake, say so — they'll take a look.

During challenges

Challenges run to stricter rules, because a leaderboard depends on a level field:

Log every sighting in the field — no backdating. (Minor edits are fine.)
Don't log multiple species from one spot you didn't bird.
The judges' decision is final, and entries may be reviewed after the draw.

For the wider etiquette of birding responsibly, Bïndo follows BirdLife South Africa's Birding Code of Ethics.