Anki without the deck-building weekend.
Anki is a blank canvas, and a very good one. For wildlife, though, you have to find or build the deck, gather the photos and sounds, and keep it all in order. Shared bird decks can run to gigabytes.
Nature By Name already knows what a species is and where it lives. Pick a place and a few groups and the deck is built, with photos from different observers and recordings where they exist.
Studying is different too. You say the name out loud and Study checks it, including whether you named the lookalike. A new species is shown with its name before anything asks you for it.
And it is not a one-way door. Any deck exports to Anki with your schedule and review history.
Anki: a blank canvas
You decide every field, template and setting. That power is the appeal, and the cost: for wildlife, building a good deck can take longer than studying it.
Nature By Name: decks from where you are
Choose a place, then narrow by group, month or trait. The species, photos and sounds are already there. Each card shows several photos from different observers, so you learn the species and not one picture.
Side by side
| Anki | Nature By Name | |
|---|---|---|
| Setting up | Find or build a deck, download media, configure | Choose a place and groups, then start |
| Scheduling | FSRS or the older SM-2 | FSRS |
| Grading | Again, Hard, Good or Easy | Again or Got it |
| Answering | Flip the card, or type into a field the template provides | Say it aloud, type it or check yourself. A lookalike said aloud is caught |
| A new species | Asked from the first time you see it | Shown with its name first, then asked about ten minutes later |
| On the answer | Whatever the template shows | Order, family, genus and the months it turns up near you |
| Place-based decks | Built by hand | Any place in the catalogue, filtered by group, month or trait |
| Photos | Whatever the deck author included | Up to four per card from different observers, swappable |
| Your sightings | Not connected | Import iNaturalist or eBird observations |
| Moving between them | Native format | Export any deck with a photo and a call per species, credits, your schedule and history |
Using them together
If Anki is already where you study, keep it. Build a deck here from a place or your own sightings, export it, and review it in Anki with everything else.
The export is a copy. Spoken answers, photo swaps and combined Study stay here, and reviews done in Anki do not come back.
If you would rather not manage decks at all, study here. The scheduling is the same kind Anki uses.
Reach for Anki when
- You already have a wildlife setup you like
- You study other subjects in the same place
- You want full control over card templates and settings
Reach for Nature By Name when
- You want to start without building anything
- You want decks for a place, group or month
- You want sounds and several photos on every card
- You want to say the name aloud instead of flipping a card
- You want your iNaturalist or eBird sightings as a starting point
What people ask for
“If I simply memorize the image, I won’t be able to recognize the species in real life. Is there a way to create cards that show different images of the same species each time I review?”
Reddit r/Anki. Read the post
“If I’m traveling to a new place I like to familiarize myself with the local botany first. I’ve done this manually before and it took many hours.”
Reddit r/Anki. Read the post
Bring a place. Skip the deck chores.
Other comparisons: iNaturalist · Merlin · eBird · Seek · BirdWise · Field guides