Patent ID: 7777747

Claim:
A method for assisting a user in identifying a bird observed in the field using a bird identification tool implemented on a handheld computing device having a display, comprising: displaying at least part of a bird that contains a plurality of selectable anatomical regions on the display of the handheld computing device; constructing a set of bird identification filter attributes based on user input to use in searching a bird identification database to determine which birds likely match the bird being observed in the field; when the user selects a given one of the plurality of selectable anatomical regions, displaying on-screen options on the display with which the user interacts to assign an appearance characteristic to the given anatomical region, wherein the given anatomical region with the assigned appearance characteristic forms one of the set of bird identification filter attributes; updating the displayed plurality of selectable anatomical regions when the given one of the selectable anatomical regions is selected to provide the user with a visual record of current bird identification filter attributes that have been selected; searching the bird identification database using the bird identification filter attributes; and presenting corresponding search results to the user on the display of the handheld computing device, wherein the search results contain images of birds that match the bird identification filter attributes.