Binoculars and a notebook. Equipped with these, our colleagues have been heading into the field ever since the Milvus Group was founded. The notebook was always with them, as this is where they recorded their bird observations. By 2016, as many as half a million records were stored in these notebooks and in smaller offline databases. This was the year when the decision was made to develop a database that would allow for the storage and management of all our existing ornithological data.
It was also important to us that these data should be publicly accessible, thereby enabling their free use by others in science, nature conservation, environmental education and other non-commercial fields. Thirdly, we wanted to create a platform that would allow others to do the same with their own data.
Based on these three guiding principles, OpenBirdMaps (OBM) was created, which wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration with the University of Debrecen.
“A very old dream of ours came true when we managed to create an online database into which anyone can upload data using a free application downloadable to their phone, and where these data are stored and made accessible to everyone who wishes to use them for nature conservation purposes. Such a database seemed unimaginable when the association was founded in the early 1990s. At that time, data of this kind were scattered across countless small notebooks kept in desk drawers, and most of them were never used. It is a good feeling to know that now every observation can be put to use; I encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity.” – said Tamás Papp, Executive Director of Milvus Group.
One year later, OpenBirdMaps joined the EuroBirdPortal, whose aim is to present the distribution of bird species and the temporal variation (seasonal, annual) of distribution on European level, largely based on observations collected by volunteer birdwatchers. Furthermore, we continued to improve the database, due to these improvements it became possible to attach photographs, sound recordings or other types of media content to observations.
By the end of 2018, the number of uploaded records had approached 700,000 observations, while the number of users regularly uploading data continued to grow.A major milestone in the life of the database was the development of a basic Android application, which allowed us to permanently abandon field notebooks. In the same year, the mammal database OpenMammalMaps was launched, initially for internal use only.
The software was under continuous development, as our goal was to make it easy to use for all birdwatchers. In 2019, for example, the database was expanded with a module supporting nest monitoring programmes, and sampling base units also became queryable. In the same year, we launched the reptile and amphibian database, OpenHerpMaps.
In 2020, OpenBirdMaps reached another important milestone: in the autumn of that year, we reached one million uploaded records.
From 2021 onwards, the application also became available to users of mobile phones running the iOS operating system.
As there is always room for improvement, in 2022 we continued to develop both the application, which was expanded with new features, and the website, which welcomed users with a new look. It also became possible to display various statistics related to the database and its users.
On September 15 2025, the birthday of Petru Bănărescu, a distinguished figure in Romanian ichthyology, we are launching our OpenFishMaps database to the general public.
This year, the OBM database celebrates its 10th anniversary. It now contains more than 2,350,000 records of 407 species from 21 countries and has 588 members. Some users have been using it regularly since the very beginning.
Every record counts! That is why we encourage you to join this community as well and collect data, so that we can form as clear a picture as possible of the status of wild bird species in Romania.
Registration for OpenBirdMaps is free and open, but only possible by invitation from an existing user. If you do not yet know anyone from the community, please contact us at openbirdmaps@milvus.ro, the administrators will be happy to help!
The free application can be downloaded from Google Play and is available in Romanian, Hungarian and English.
Here you can watch a short introductory video about it.
