Vinay's Mountain Birds

Turn eighteen hundred Western Ghats sightings into a card game, and still find every eagle spotted since 2018 with one thumb.

Who this is for

Vinay Hegde teaches at a school in Sirsi, Uttara Kannada, and has been writing down every bird they see since a Malabar trogon in March 2018. Eighteen hundred entries now, across Kathalekan, Yana, the arecanut plots behind the house. The moment is the 6.40 bus to Yellapur. Ninety minutes, one hand on the rail, the other on the phone, a bag between the feet, and nothing to do but think about birds.

How the job is done today

Three ruled notebooks live in a steel cupboard. On Sunday nights Vinay copies the week into a spreadsheet on an old laptop, and by then the handwriting for the fifth of June has gone soft. The Ghats Birders WhatsApp group has four hundred people asking what a brown thing on a wire was, and Vinay answers from memory, then doubts the memory. When a friend asked how many kinds of eagle Vinay had seen since 2018, it took an evening of scrolling and the answer was still a guess. On the bus the spreadsheet opens, pinches sideways, and closes.

The screens, in order

1. The deck — Opens straight into play, showing one card at a time from Vinay's own records so the app is something to do rather than something to set up.
2. The card — Shows a date, a place and a note from a real sighting and asks which bird it was, with four answers big enough for a thumb on a bad road.
3. The streak — Tells Vinay how far they got this ride and which birds keep tripping them up, so the next round has a reason to start.
4. Find a bird — Lets Vinay reach any part of eighteen hundred sightings by tapping, so questions like every eagle since 2018 get answered before the bus reaches Yellapur.
5. One sighting — Holds everything Vinay wrote about a single morning, so the answer to a WhatsApp question can be read out exactly as it was recorded.
6. Note it down — Takes a new sighting in the seconds the bus is stopped, with the date and the last used place already filled in.

What it keeps track of

• Sightings — which bird, which day, what time roughly, which place, how many, what the weather was doing, a line of notes
• Birds — the name Vinay uses, the English name, the Kannada name if there is one, first time seen, how many times since
• Places — name of the spot, nearest town, forest or plantation or water, how to get there
• Rounds played — which day, how many cards, how many right, longest run, which birds went wrong

The one decision that matters

Everything turns on how Vinay reaches a bird on a moving bus. One way is a search box: type eagle, get eagles. It is the obvious build and it works well at a desk. The other way is tapping through ready-made cuts down the bottom half of the screen: birds of prey, this monsoon, Kathalekan, first time seen. Go with tapping. Typing needs two hands and a steady surface, and the bus has neither. A keyboard also eats half a portrait screen and pushes results out of sight. Keep a small search for when Vinay is at home, but never make it the only door. Every common question should be reachable in three taps in the lower third of the screen.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out photographs. Vinay has thousands on the phone and linking them feels obvious, but they load slowly on the Yellapur road, they turn a light app into a heavy one, and the game gets easier and duller when the answer is sitting there as a picture. The words are the record. Also leave out sharing rounds with the WhatsApp group. Get one person playing alone for a month first, then see whether anyone else wants a turn.

How you would know it worked

Sunday night comes and the laptop stays shut, because the week already went in on the bus. And when someone in the Ghats Birders group asks about eagles, Vinay answers in under a minute with a number and the dates, from a seat, holding the rail.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I have been noting down every bird I see in the Western Ghats since 2018 and there are about eighteen hundred entries sitting in a spreadsheet I only open at night. I want an app that turns my own notes into a game I can play with one thumb on the Yellapur bus. Show me a card with a date and a place from my records and ask which bird I saw, four choices, big buttons near the bottom, and keep a run going. Let me also tap my way to any part of it without typing, all the eagles since 2018, everything from Kathalekan, everything I saw in monsoon. Let me open a single sighting and read exactly what I wrote. And let me put in a fresh one in about ten seconds when the bus stops.