The easiest way to log and structure bat survey observations.
Either dictate throughout your survey or talk through it as you walk back to the car. Fieldcast transcribes your audio, recognises UK bat species and behaviours, and gives you a clean observation table you can paste straight into your word report. Transcription of a roughly hour-long audio recording takes just under 4 minutes currently.
A real Fieldcast output — 30 minutes of voice memo from one of my own dusk emergence surveys, parsed into an editable table and exported as .docx.
Why I built it
I work part time doing mainly bat dusk surveys in the field season. After working with a few different companies I realised handwritten notes feel outdated; retyping rushed abbreviations and poor handwriting into Excel or Word is painful. You lose detail, you lose time, and if you're consolidating notes from a team of four surveyors with different handwriting, you lose your mind.
Fieldcast has been tested in real-world conditions on a number of bat surveys. The auto-generated table matched my own observations almost perfectly, including far more detail I would have likely missed if I was writing it all down physically.
How it works
- Record as you survey. Voice memo on your phone — iOS Voice Memos, any recorder. Hands free, no clipboard, no screen.
- Upload the audio. Fieldcast transcribes with a model primed on UK bat species, then parses observations into a structured table: time, species, count, behaviour, location, direction, notes.
- Review, edit, export. Check any rows that need fixing. Copy the table straight into your Word report, or download as a .docx.
Why not just use iPhone dictation?
Generic phone dictation doesn't reliably recognise UK bat species — try saying "Soprano pipistrelle" or "Brown long-eared" into the built-in iOS Dictation and see what you get. You'd also get a wall of transcribed text, not a structured table; you'd still have to re-read it and pull observations into rows manually, which is the slow bit you were trying to skip. Fieldcast handles both steps: species-aware transcription with the UK bat list baked in, then automatic parsing into the same time, species, count, behaviour, location, direction, and notes columns you'd put in your report.
Works with paper too
If you'd rather write in the field, dictate your notes once you're back at the desk. Transcription of an hour of audio takes just under four minutes — almost always faster than retyping. Fieldcast can also be used to transcribe existing survey sheets in seconds, so it adapts to your existing workflow rather than asking you to change it.
Phone in pocket
Recording works with your screen off. Pocket your phone and forget about it — an hour and a half of recording on the built-in iPhone Voice Memos app used under 10% battery in testing.
Web now, native coming
Fieldcast works in your browser today — phone or laptop, no install required. A native mobile app (likely iOS first, then Android) is planned for the near future. The web version will stick around either way.
Who this is for
UK ecological consultants doing bat surveys. Fieldcast V1 covers both dusk and activity surveys, with plans to add PRA, tree, GCN, dormouse and other UK survey types in the near future. If your hands are full in the field — climbing, holding a torch, lifting refugia — or you find yourself omitting potentially important details, Fieldcast is built for you.
About me
Will, junior ecological consultant, UK. I'm building Fieldcast as it seems to be an obvious jump in productivity. Consultancies appear to be backlogged with work and struggling to manage data. With this in mind, Fieldcast attempts to streamline a small part of your work.
It's currently in closed beta within my current workplace, however I'm looking for two or three more UK bat ecologists to try it out on real surveys.
Try it on your next survey
Drop your email and I'll be in touch when there's space in the beta. No marketing, no spam — one email from me when it's ready.
Or open the demo now →