SnowRaven icon

SnowRaven

Dave Gibson
Science & Education
Version
1.0.53
Size
28.2 MB
Requires
Android API 26+
3.9 / 5 · 15,187 ratings 92,027 downloads

Updated Oct 18, 2026

Quick answer

Birding tools and data explorer for your eBird and Macaulay Library exports

SnowRaven reads your eBird and Macaulay Library exports and gives you weather and tides for your checklists, your history with every species, life-list statistics, and an interactive map, on your own phone or tablet. It is free and open source, built by one birder for their own data, and it works alongside eBird and the Macaulay Library.

Weather Paste a checklist ID and get a weather and tide summary ready to drop into the checklist comment, or look up the forecast for any place and time ahead. The Weather/tide Planner lays out the coming sunrises and sunsets, each with its tide and forecast weather.

Statistics A dashboard built from your eBird backup: life-list totals and growth, milestones, and when and where you bird. A weather section reads back the weather blocks SnowRaven and RainCrow write into checklist comments: the conditions on the outings you wrote a block for.

Map Explorer Your sightings on an interactive map, with nearby eBird hotspots and where species new to you were reported recently. Counties shade by your counts or by how complete your county list is, with a California Breeding Bird Atlas overlay.

Species Detail Your whole history with one bird: sightings, field notes, breeding codes, a map of every observation, and any splits or lumps along the way. A weather card shows the skies and temperatures you found it in, from SnowRaven and RainCrow weather blocks.

Calendar A year of your birding as twelve month grids, each day shaded by how many species you saw. Fold the years together, or narrow it to a single species.

Targets A county's targets over your own record: the lifers there, the birds you have yet to photograph, record, or film, and the ones you have never given a breeding code. Rank them by eBird's frequencies or by what has been reported lately.

Multimedia Your life list as a media checklist: which species you have photographed, recorded, and filmed, and which you still need. Narrow it by sex and age.

Breeding Codes Every species you have recorded breeding evidence for, as a matrix against eBird's breeding codes, colored by evidence tier.

Checklists Your checklists as whole outings: search every comment you have written, and filter by what an outing has.

List Comparer Two life lists side by side, or any two public checklists: what they share and what only one has.

Named Birds Tag an individual bird by name in a species comment and SnowRaven gathers everything you have on it: sightings, places, a timeline, its own media. With several named birds, one strip puts them all on a shared time axis.

Privacy Private by default, and in your control: no account, no analytics, no telemetry, no server we run. Your eBird backup, Macaulay Library export, and API keys stay on your device, and in your phone's own backup if you use one. The Android app has no Google services, no Firebase, and no crash reporter. SnowRaven's own code makes no request to Google. Its screens are drawn by your phone's Android System WebView, a system component that may contact Google on its own; SnowRaven turns off the WebView's Safe Browsing and usage statistics, and has no setting for the rest. Privacy policy: https://snowraven.dtgibson.com/privacy.html

What you'll need A free eBird API key and a free OpenWeather API key subscribed to its One Call by Call plan (activating it needs a payment card on file; set a usage cap to avoid charges), entered once in Settings. Most tabs also read your eBird backup and, for the media features, an optional Macaulay Library export.

Network services SnowRaven relies on network services that are not free software, chiefly eBird for checklist details, hotspots, and recent sightings, and OpenWeather for weather, each used with your own API key.

Weather by OpenWeather. Checklist and media data from eBird and the Macaulay Library. Tides from NOAA Tides & Currents.

Screenshots

SnowRaven screenshot 1
SnowRaven screenshot 2
SnowRaven screenshot 3
SnowRaven screenshot 4
SnowRaven screenshot 5
SnowRaven screenshot 6

What’s new

How to install

  1. Download the APK from the button at the top of this page.
  2. Allow “Install unknown apps” for your browser or file manager only, not for every app.
  3. Open the downloaded file and confirm the installation.
  4. If installation fails with “App not installed,” remove an earlier build of the same app first. A signature conflict is the usual cause.

Data safety

  • Every file is checked against its published SHA-256 before it is listed.
  • Files are scanned for malware on every update.
  • The permissions each app requests are listed on its own page.
  • Read the full safety policy for how we test, flag, and delist files.

Frequently asked questions

What is SnowRaven?
Birding tools and data explorer for your eBird and Macaulay Library exports
Who develops SnowRaven?
SnowRaven is developed by Dave Gibson.
Which Android version does SnowRaven require?
SnowRaven requires Android API 26 or later.
What is the current version of SnowRaven?
The synchronized F-Droid version is 1.0.53.
Which license does SnowRaven use?
The signed F-Droid metadata lists AGPL-3.0-only.
Where is the source code for SnowRaven?
https://github.com/dtgibson/snowraven

Comments

Recent approved comments · sorted by newest

Verification code
Be specific and keep it about the app. No links. Comments are reviewed before publication. Device and Android details are recorded automatically. Privacy policy.

Loading recent comments...

View all comments