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Creating journal entries

To start a new journal entry, press the big plus button at the bottom of any Encounter screen. You can type into the box, or if you prefer, dictate your entry (see below). The time, date and weather conditions will automatically be saved with your entry; you can edit the time and date for up to seven days, and the weather will automatically update to the correct local conditions too.

Encounter will ask your permission to add a location to your journal entries. If you allow this, and tag any species you’ve seen, you’ll be contributing valuable ecological data that will allow Encounter, over time, to target more anonymised information about what’s happening in nature to users’ local areas, helping to make the app smarter and boost nature connectedness.

Please note that your journal text and images are held on an encrypted server and are not shared to the internet or visible to any other Encounter users. For more details see our Privacy Policy.

Activating dictation

If you’d like to dictate your journal entries while on the move, you can use your phone’s inbuilt voice-to-text function. Start a new entry using the big plus button (+), hold down the microphone button on your keypad and speak slowly and clearly. If you say ‘comma’ or ‘full stop’ it should include those too; however, this function is provided by your phone, rather than Encounter, so your results may vary.

Adding tags to journal entries

Under your journal entry field you’ll see ‘What did you see?’. Start typing the name of a species, natural phenomena or landscape feature you have encountered and the app will search Encounter’s database for the closest match. It will default to a single common name, which may be different from the one you’re most familiar with. Tags are invaluable if you have your phone’s location settings switched on, as together they build a picture of how the natural world is faring as well as helping the app become smarter and more useful over time.

Editing journal entries

You can always edit the text, images and location of your journal entries. Locate the one you wish to edit in the ‘My journal’ feed, tap anywhere in the white area to open it, then tap the pencil icon at the top right. You can now change the text, or delete the photos; but do remember to save it again. Please note, you can only edit the date or time for seven days after you first save the entry, and you cannot create new journal entries for more than seven days in the past. This is because the date and time affects the weather data saved with each entry, records for which only go back for one week.

Adding something to the Encounter database

There are more than 70,000 species that live in the British Isles, not counting pets, livestock and garden plants. Encounter comes with a custom database of around five thousand species and phenomena, specially designed to allow you to tag your natural encounters: not everything, yet, but a lot! If you’ve seen, heard or experienced something you’d like us to add to the database, use the ‘email us’ link that appears when you search the app for a tag and nothing comes up, or email species@encounter-nature.com. Please be patient: we’ll be adding species in batches rather than one by one, and prioritising common things over the very rare or hard to identify.

Adding photos to journal entries

At the moment you can add up to five photos to each journal entry; these will be automatically resized. Start a new journal entry, then click ‘+ add images’ at the foot of the text entry screen. You’ll need to give the app permission to access your image gallery. For now, you will need to take the photos using your usual camera app, rather than within Encounter. This means you will always have your own copy in your phone storage.

Using the search function

The search function is coming soon, and will allow you to search by the tags you add to your journal entries. Please note: as well as tag search we have lots of plans for features we’d like to add. Additionally, in the months to come more of the content in the Inspire Me and Learn More feeds will be location-specific as we develop partnerships and learn more from your tags about what you’re encountering. Thank you for joining Encounter at the start of this journey: we’ll only get there with the help of people like you!

Setting a home location

To receive nature tips, information and articles relevant to your area, please tap the menu icon (three horizontal lines) at the top right of the home feed, choose ‘Set location’ and select from the drop-down list – don’t forget to change this if you travel out of your usual area! When writing in your journal, recording the location for each entry requires setting location permissions to ‘on’ on your phone (you’ll be prompted to do this when you create your first journal entry). Then, Encounter will automatically find your location, but you can alter this by tapping the ‘Change location or address’ button and moving the map (pinch to zoom out). Please note, Android phones return less accurate locations and addresses; we’d love this to be different, but it’s not something we can change.

Using the filters on the home feed

Tap the filter button at the top of the home screen to bring up the filters. Bookmarks stands alone, but you can use the other three in any combination to determine what you see in your home feed. Use the ‘Show posts relevant to my location’ tickbox to switch between all the content and that which applies to the county you’ve chosen in My Location (this checkbox does not affect your own journal entries). Pull down on the home feed to dismiss the filters from the top of the feed, or tap the filter button at the top again.

Using bookmarks

Tap the Bookmark icon on the top right of a journal entry, post or article to bookmark it; it will then appear in your Bookmarks filter.

Using the app on night walks

iPhones (and some Android phones) have a ‘red mode’ which you can set up via the Accessibility menu and which allows you to use your phone in the dark without affecting your night vision. Android instructions differ widely, but for instructions for iPhones please click here. Note: Red Mode is different from Night Shift (Apple) or Eye Comfort (Android), both of which more subtly alter the screen temperature.

Changing the text size

You can increase and decrease the size of text using the Accessibility settings on your phone. Please note, this may affect the layout of the images and other elements within the app, depending on your phone size and model.

Learning about how Encounter handles data

Your journal entries are stored on an encrypted server and are not visible to any other app users. However, if you have location settings on Encounter can see the things you tag and where you were when you encountered them. This information is invaluable: we can learn so much about nature, climate change and how our wildlife is doing from your tags, so please allow location permissions and tag the things you see, hear and enjoy. For more on how we use your data you can read our Privacy Policy here and our Terms and Conditions here.

Identifying species

Encounter can’t ID things for you (yet!). However, we recommend Merlin for birds and birdsong, and Flora Incognita for plants; both are free. We strongly advise against using the inbuilt image recognition in your phone’s image gallery as the results are often far less accurate than they may initially appear.

Getting a nature-based event mentioned in Encounter

Go to our Contact page and fill in the form to suggest content for Encounter. Please give us at least two weeks’ notice. We cannot promise to feature your event, but we do read all your messages.

Making a suggestion about the app

You can use the form below to send us feedback or suggestions about how the app works. We can’t reply to every message, but we do read them all!