FireflyFieldNotes app for iPhone and iPad

FireflyFieldNotes is a field observation data logger that was developed to support an on-going research study. It is designed primarily for use in-house as a tool to help document the types and distribution of fireflies in our geographical area.

Fireflies (aka lightning bugs) can be characterized by the pattern of flashes that they produce when flying. FireflyFieldNotes provides a simple way to record flash patterns and/or field notes.

The observer watches an individual firefly as it flies and flashes, tapping a button each time a flash occurs. After recording several flashes in this manner you can save the flash record with, or without, an associated field note. Alternatively, notes can be created and saved independently of recording flash information.

The location of each observation is logged, and is also used to obtain and record local weather information.

A flash pattern may consist of a single flash repeating periodically, in which case it is summarized as having 1 flash with an IFI (interflash interval) that indicates the time from the beginning of one flash to the beginning of the next flash. A pattern may also consist of a burst of several flashes where the burst repeats periodically. This more complex pattern is summarized by the number of flashes in a burst, the interval between the flashes within the burst (IFI) and the interval from the beginning of one burst to the beginning of the next burst (IBI, interburst interval).

The application is limited to analyzing simple patterns comprising a single repeated interflash interval or regularly repeating bursts of flashes.

A comprehensive log of all observations can be emailed as a tab separated text file (unicode encoding).

Limitations: Full functionality requires that the user allow the application to use location information. Internet access (cellular or wifi) is required to obtain weather information.

Privacy information: This app does not send any information to the developer. For each observation, the users location is sent to dark sky.net to obtain weather data. No other user information is sent to third parties.