It's incredible out there. Let's go exploring.
Ready to climb some peaks, spot some 🦜 beaks?
Peaks and Beaks aims to make it easy for communities to share their favourite routes to hike, bike, run, walk, and row and make notes about the wildlife along the way.
Nature is our provider. Ecosystem services provide free benefits, including food, carbon storage, air filtration, storm surge protection, and water. If we had to put a price tag on ecosystem services, we could be looking at around $150 trillion annually. That would be the same as paying around 2x of the world's GDP yearly. Maintaining biodiversity is critical to ensure our ecosystem services do not collapse, but this is currently in grave danger. Environmental degradation, deforestation, and species loss will cost us dearly and more than in GDP terms. We can start with little steps, like stepping outside into the world we share and exploring it. The more we can appreciate it, the more we'll be able to come up with innovative solutions to ensure we'll be able to share our amazing world with future generations.
Why Peaks and Beaks?
Create Custom Routes
Staying active and watching the urban wildlife were two things that kept me feeling at all balanced during the COVID-19 lockdowns. With a newfound appreciation for watching birdlife from my window and wanting to use walking and running routes in a way my other apps haven't allowed, I built my Peaks and Beaks as an activity/observation tracker for my Harvard CS50 Web Capstone Project.
It seemed like the perfect opportunity to learn GeoDjango, leaflet.js, and chart.js and build a tool I would like to use.
Explore Shared Routes
Peaks and Beaks hopes to encourage anyone who uses it to get out into the world and explore and enjoy their surroundings. Create and share exciting routes. Choose to filter the routes to only show your own or to show routes created by other users who've opted to make those routes public.
Clicking on any of the markers on the map will load a popup marker with the starting point for that route so you can see more information about who created the route and the distance. You can view the route's full path or log an activity and observation for that route if you've just completed it.
Curate Creature Lists to Watch
Whether you're looking to add more activity to your daily routine or are looking to become more observant, wishlists can be a fun way to learn more about nature around you.
You don't need to visit a national park to enjoy this app. Cities are teeming with life, whether it's the wild parrots of San Francisco or the Pademelons and wild Cockatoos of Tasmania; Peaks and Beaks hopes to help make stepping outside a worthwhile adventure.
Log Activities
Ready to log an activity? Take a moment to reflect. Did you try a new route? Did you enjoy it? How difficult do you think it was, and what did you see on that journey, perhaps a Peregrine Falcon, a Platypus or Eastern Quoll, or maybe a deer?
Log activities, make notes on any species you saw, and upload photos if you were able to capture them.
See all the Species you've Spotted
Trying to remember where you saw that wild San Franciscan parrot, that circling Falcon or waddling Echidna?
You can visualize all the animals you've observed on your map. These are private to you and will not be shown to other users.
Visualize Your Progress over Time
Is your goal to be more active or to try see many different animals?
Peaks and Beaks helps you keep track of your stats over time.