The Species Inventory application (i.e., SI) assists with three tasks: log sightings, search sightings, and share sightings.

When you are logging sightings in the field, SI saves time and reduces data entry errors by automatically filling out most of the data entry fields: date, time, observer, site, group, species, specimen count, and longitude and latitude of observer (if a GPS receiver is connected).

Because SI stores sighitng information in flash memory instead of RAM, SI is an industrial strength data logger (with a 1 Gbyte SD card, SI can manage about 10 million sightings). When you are searching for a specific logged sighting (e.g., Where did I see that species before?), SI can quickly filter sightings according to time, observer, site, group, and species. Or you can use SI's Quick Find to scroll through the sighting list searching the species names.

Finally, and potentially its most valuable capability, SI makes it easy to share sightings. For sharing on a local scale, simply exchange sighting files via beaming, email, or on-line spreadsheets. Or create a Google map of your local sightings with SI's Google map report generator. For sharing on a national scale, SI offers an eBird upload file report generator that produces sighting reports that you can upload to your eBird account. The Species Inventory application requires a device with a card slot, Palm OS version 4.0 or greater, and the Peck application installed.