Bird Days vs eBird: Keep Your Birds vs Log Wild Sightings

If you love birds, two very different apps come up — and they are not really competitors. eBird, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is the world's biggest free platform for logging the wild birds you see. Bird Days, the iOS app we make, is a visual journal for the birds you keep and follow — your flock, your aviary, or a personal life list built from your own photos. This is an honest comparison of Bird Days vs eBird, because they solve different problems and picking the wrong one is easy.

The core difference: a sightings database vs a personal bird journal

eBird is a citizen-science checklist. You submit what you observed, where, and how many — and that data flows into a global database that researchers actually use. The birds you log are wild, transient, and counted. The value is in the data and the community.

Bird Days is a personal photo journal organized by individual bird. Each bird — a budgie in your aviary, a backyard cardinal you see every morning, a cockatiel you've raised — gets its own profile, a chronological photo timeline, and a spot on a visual life list. The value is in the story of specific birds, kept privately for you.

Bird Days vs eBird at a glance

	eBird	Bird Days
Built for	Logging wild sightings for science	Keeping & journaling your own birds
How you log	Checklists by place, date & count	Per-bird profiles with photo timelines
Pet & aviary birds	Not designed for captive birds	Aviary maps, flock records, per-bird reminders
Life list	Data life list with global stats	Visual life list — photos, location, species
Photos	Optional, uploaded to the database	Central; Live Photos & collages (30+ layouts)
Sharing	Public sightings & hotspots	Longshot cards & photo collages
Platforms	iOS, Android, web	Native iOS + iCloud sync, CSV export
Privacy	Account-based, public database	Private, on-device with iCloud backup
Price	Free	Free for up to 3 birds; premium unlimited

Where eBird still wins

Let's be clear: eBird is one of the best free resources in all of nature study, and Bird Days doesn't try to replace it. Backed by the Cornell Lab, it holds hundreds of millions of observations, gives you real-time rare-bird alerts, lets you explore birding hotspots anywhere on earth, and pairs seamlessly with Merlin Bird ID to identify a bird by photo or sound. It runs on iOS, Android, and the web, and every checklist you submit contributes to genuine conservation science. If your goal is to identify wild birds and log sightings, eBird is unmatched — Bird Days doesn't identify birds and doesn't feed a research database.

Where Bird Days fits better

Choose Bird Days when the birds you care about are specific — yours to keep, or yours to follow:

• You keep birds — an aviary, a backyard flock, or a breeding program. eBird is only for wild sightings; Bird Days gives each bird a profile with species, sex, acquisition date, habitat, and conservation status.
• You want a visual life list — a timeline of photos and Live Photos from first sighting through seasonal changes and molts, not just a species count.
• You like to share beautifully — photo collages with 30+ layouts and tall "longshot" cards that scroll through a bird's full profile and sighting log.
• You want an aviary map — place a marker for each bird and snapshot how your setup changes over time.
• You want per-bird reminders so no bird goes too long without a fresh photo, plus native iOS polish, iCloud sync, and CSV export — all private on your device.

"eBird tracks the birds I saw. Bird Days keeps the birds I love — the ones in my aviary and the two cardinals that visit every winter."

The bottom line

Pick eBird if you want to identify wild birds, log checklists, and contribute to a global science database — it's free, cross-platform, and best-in-class at exactly that. Pick Bird Days if you want a private, visual record of the specific birds in your life, captive or watched, with per-bird photo timelines, aviary maps, and a life list made of your own photos. They pair well: identify and log in eBird or Merlin, then journal what matters in Bird Days.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bird Days a good eBird alternative?

It depends what you want. eBird is unbeatable for logging wild-bird checklists that feed a global citizen-science database. Bird Days is not a replacement for that — it's the better pick if you keep pet or aviary birds, or if you want a private, visual life list built from your own photos rather than a species-count checklist. Many birders use both: Merlin or eBird to identify and log sightings, and Bird Days to keep the photos and story of the birds that matter to them.

Can Bird Days identify birds like eBird and Merlin?

No. Bird Days does not identify birds from photos or sound — that is what Merlin Bird ID (from the same Cornell Lab that makes eBird) is built for. Bird Days is a journal: you record the birds you already know, giving each one a profile, a photo timeline, and a place on your visual life list. A common workflow is to identify a bird with Merlin, then journal it in Bird Days.

Does Bird Days work for pet birds and aviaries?

Yes, and this is the biggest gap it fills that eBird does not. eBird is designed for wild sightings, not captive birds. Bird Days lets keepers and breeders give each bird a detailed profile, build a photo timeline from first day to seasonal changes and molts, design a visual map of aviaries or enclosures, and set per-bird reminders so no record goes stale. It's free for up to 3 birds, with premium unlocking unlimited birds.

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Also from ElevenApril: The Best Bearded Dragon Apps for another kind of keeper. Questions? Email us.