Quillscope

Quillscope (Birding)

Your Valar Scope can also run as a desk window onto the birds being reported near you — live from the Cornell Lab eBird API. It's a hybrid of the two Valar Scopes interface styles: a tap‑to‑inspect radar and a set of rotating data screens, so you can glance at a ticker of recent rarities or tap a blip on the map for the details.

It's a separate firmware build for the same Valar Scopes hardware: flash the Quillscope firmware and the device boots into the sightings monitor instead of the radar. Everything else you already know carries over — Wi‑Fi setup, the web config page, persistent storage, over‑the‑air updates, and ntfy alerts.

Bring your own key. eBird's API is free, but each device uses your own token — it is never baked into the firmware. Create one at ebird.org/api/keygen, then enter it on the config page; it's masked once saved (the same way Blipscope, the Aviation edition, handles your OpenSky secret). Nothing is polled until a token and a location are set — until then the device shows a friendly setup prompt. The device queries eBird directly; there is no backend.

🖥️ The screens

Quillscope combines both Valar Scopes navigation styles. Screens auto‑rotate on a dwell timer (skipping any feed that has no data yet), and you can also swipe left/right by hand. On the radar and notable screens, tap a bird to open its detail card.

Screen	What it shows
🐦 Sightings radar	Recent reports plotted around your location by bearing and distance, with notable (rare/unusual) birds ringed in gold. Static range rings, like the Seismic radar. Tap a blip for its card.
⭐ Notable	A scrolling list of recent notable sightings near you — the rarities — species, count, location, and how long ago each was reported.
📋 Big day	A species count for your area over the lookback window — how many distinct species have been reported nearby, the birder's "day list" at a glance.
📍 Hotspot	Your nearest eBird hotspot and how many species have been recorded there, so you know where to head.
🎯 Targets	Your target species watchlist — the birds you've told it you're hoping to see — flagged when one turns up in the recent reports.
🔎 Detail card	Tap any bird (on the Radar or Notable screen) for a card with the species (common and scientific name), how many were seen, the location, distance and bearing from you, and how long ago it was reported.
✨ Splash / 🕑 Clock	A welcome card on cold start (with a setup hint if no key or location is set yet), and an idle UTC clock that honours the night auto‑dim.

🚨 Alerts

Quillscope can push phone notifications via ntfy (see Alerts and Watchlist for how ntfy works). Set a topic and pick which triggers fire — each independently toggleable, and seeded at boot (via a seen‑species set) so the existing backlog never pings you, only fresh sightings:

• Notable / rare sighting nearby — a notable bird is reported within your radius.
• Target species appears — one of your watchlist species turns up nearby.

Leave the topic blank to disable all alerts.

⚙️ Configuration

Everything is set from the same web page as the radar — Configuration Reference explains how to open it. The Quillscope build's page offers:

Setting	Description
eBird API token	Your free key from ebird.org/api/keygen. Sent as the X-eBirdApiToken header; masked once saved. Required before anything is polled.
Location	Latitude / longitude — the centre of the radar and of every "nearby" query, and the basis for the day/night auto‑dim. Required before anything is polled.
Radius	How far the nearby queries reach, in km (default 25, eBird's max is 50).
Lookback	How many days back to consider a sighting "recent" (default 7).
Target species	A comma‑separated watchlist (e.g. Painted Bunting, Snowy Owl) — matched by name or code against recent reports for the Targets screen and the target alert.
ntfy.sh topic + triggers	Phone‑alert topic and the two per‑trigger toggles (notable / target).
Palette / Brightness / Auto‑dim	The colour theme and the same backlight and night‑dim controls as the radar.

Changes apply live on Save, with no reboot — same as the radar.

⬆️ Getting it & updates

Quillscope is its own firmware image on its own update channel, so a device set up as Quillscope only ever pulls Quillscope firmware (and a radar device only pulls radar firmware) — the products never cross. Over‑the‑air updates otherwise work exactly as on the radar; see Firmware Updates.

Related

• Configuration Reference — opening the web config page
• Alerts and Watchlist — how ntfy phone alerts work
• Screens and Gestures — the swipe/tap model this edition shares with the radar
• Clock and Brightness — the auto‑dim this edition honours
• Network and Setup — Wi‑Fi setup
• Quakescope · Orbitscope · Reelscope · Missileer — its sibling editions