Nura
Nature has always spoken. Nura makes it readable: record a song or take a photograph and, in seconds, up comes the name of the species, its story and the territory you are standing in.
About the project
The doubt lasts ten seconds.
Someone crosses a boardwalk at dusk and hears a song they don’t recognise. Today they walk on and never find out what it was. That is the distance Nura closes.
Just record the sound or point the camera. Identification runs on two engines in parallel: BirdNET, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, for the song; and OpenAI computer vision for the image — including photographs already sitting in the phone’s gallery.
For those who manage the territory — municipalities, reserves, accommodation and operators — the same activity turns into biodiversity data, updated in real time.
The experience
A moment of nature, from start to finish.
Nura doesn’t ask you to be an expert. It joins you the instant curiosity appears.
You hear or see something
A song among the trees, a bird perched in the distance. Record the sound or take a photograph.
You find out what it is
In seconds up comes the name of the species, its story and where it usually lives.
You start belonging to the place
Every discovery adds to your trail. You start reading the territory instead of just crossing it.
Sound and image
Two ways of asking nature.
You don’t always hear it. You don’t always see it up close. Nura answers both ways.
By sound
Record the song and the species is recognised by voice, even when the bird stays hidden. The engine is BirdNET, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
By image
Take a photograph on the spot or pick one you already have. Computer vision identifies what is in the frame.
Features
What the app does.
Bioacoustic radar
The microphone picks up the soundscape and identifies birds by their song, even when they stay out of sight.
Image identification
The camera recognises the species in the frame — and also photographs already stored on the phone.
Nothing to install
Opens in the browser from a QR code on site. No app store, no waiting.
Anonymous exploring
You identify and discover without creating an account. Signing up is a choice, never a condition.
Nura Flow
Guided listening and ornitherapy sessions, for those looking for a pause rather than an answer.
Personal trail
Species discovered and territories explored are kept in the profile of anyone who chooses to create an account.
Gamification
Badges for each discovery, collector levels and milestones along the way. Every territory, partner or birdwatching and ornitherapy event can have a badge of its own.
Species catalogue
Scientific name, family, conservation status and occurrences, filterable by region.
The sustainability metrics dashboard is built into the platform; the integration with external sources is still under way.
How Nura works
The people discovering are not the people managing — and that is what makes the system work.
On one side, the people out in the field: they identify by sound, identify by image or step into Nura Flow, and come away with a discovery. On the other, those who look after the territory: municipalities, protected areas, accommodation and operators.
Between them there is one rule: data is shared anonymously. The partner receives the species, the place and the moment; never the person who made the sighting.
Three ways to use it
Identification by sound, identification by image and Nura Flow, for those looking for a pause. Always in the browser, with nothing to install.
Anonymous sharing
Each detection keeps species, engine, confidence, territory and moment — never the identity of whoever made it. On the partner dashboard the observer is only a number. This is the anonymisation required by the GDPR, applied from the design of the system onwards.
Biodiversity as a dashboard
Local authorities, reserves and companies follow species, density, trends and sustainability indicators for their territory.
Partner dashboard
The territory’s biodiversity, as it happens.
An area reserved for institutional and business partners, with access granted by Nura. It is not public and cannot be reached from the app used by explorers.
Overview
The state of the territory at a glance
Identifications in the period, unique species, active explorers and the environmental health index. Beside it, the live heat map and the most recent activity, with species, detection engine and confidence level.
Heat map
Where life concentrates
Sighting density across the territory, filterable by species, period and region, separating sound from image detections. Each point opens the list of sightings behind it.
Sightings
Every detection, a record you can check
The full record of detections, with species, type, territory, date, time and the confidence assigned by the AI. Filterable and exportable for reports or the partner’s internal systems.
Species
The territory seen through its species
A catalogue with common name, scientific name, family, conservation status and number of occurrences, separating what has been found in the field from what is on the national list.
ESG metrics
Sustainability in numbers
ESG index, biodiversity health and acoustic purity, with the trend for the period and the alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Built for institutional reports and funding applications.
Territories
Each zone with its own profile
The mapped geographic zones, with associated partner, coordinates, coverage radius, on-site QR code and status. This is where a new destination joins the ecosystem.
In the Nura catalogue
Figures published by Nura for mainland Portugal, the Azores and Madeira.
For partners
Each destination, a territory with an identity.
Any organisation working in nature tourism joins the ecosystem with its QR code, its territory and its data dashboard.
Nature accommodation
Hotels, eco-lodges, campsites and rural tourism. A QR code in the room or at reception turns the stay into an experience of discovery.
Operators and guides
Those who guide visitors through the territory gain a digital layer the client can consult before, during and after the walk.
Municipalities and protected areas
Real-time biodiversity data for territorial management, institutional communication and reporting.
In the press
The subject is discussed outside the app too.
An opinion piece by Nura’s founder, published in SAPO, on how birdwatching is moving into the field of wellbeing and on the place ornitherapy is starting to take in nature tourism.
Details
How it is built.
| Type of solution | A bird identification and territory interpretation app, developed by Shiftx. |
| Format | Progressive web app. Opens in the phone’s browser, with no installation and no app store. |
| Access | A QR code on site or directly at app.nura.com.pt. |
| Sound identification | BirdNET, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the world reference in bird bioacoustics. |
| Image identification | OpenAI computer vision, applied to the camera and to the phone’s gallery. |
| Account | Optional. It only serves to save a personal trail, for those who want one. |
| Languages | Portuguese, English and Spanish. |
| Partner dashboard | A reserved area, with access granted by Nura to each partner. It is not public. |
| Shared data | Sightings are shared anonymously, without identifying who made them, in compliance with the GDPR. |
Next step
Do you have a territory to interpret?
Try the app the way a visitor would — then let’s talk about what it could do for yours.