Smartphones and nature are not often considered to be the best companions, but according to Nature Nanaimo, there are numerous apps available for wildlife lovers to learn more about their natural surroundings.
“That’s one of the reasons why many naturalists don’t use field guides as much these days. You just don’t need a book to flip through anymore. You can just post it on iNaturalist and find out what it’s about pretty quickly,” says Doug Fraser, president of Nature Nanaimo.
“You have an almost unlimited database. A field guide, for example a field guide of birds of western North America, will have a picture of each bird or a few pictures or drawings of each bird, but you don’t have as much data as the Internet has on each individual bird species.”
There are four apps that Fraser recommends.
1. Merlin
The Merlin app, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, allows users to record bird calls and the app will identify the species in real time, even if the user does not have internet access. If someone is lucky enough to get a clear photo of the bird, that can also be used for identification. The Photo ID mode provides a short list of possible matches.
“When I walk through the forest, I think, ‘OK, maybe I didn’t see the MacGillivray’s Warbler, but I know it was there,'” Fraser said. “So that’s cool. In that wetland or forest that I just walked through, I was completely surrounded by this rich diversity of wildlife that I may not have gotten to see, but at least I know they’re there.”
One benefit of the app is the ability to identify birds you might not otherwise recognize, Fraser said.
“I think many people don’t realise how many beautiful little birds we have. I’m thinking of the yellowthroat, which is very common, a spectacular looking little bird, but one that you almost never see.”
In addition, the more a person uses Merlin, the more they learn about the different sounds of the different species.
“It makes a little list of all the singing birds around me, so you say, ‘That’s the call of the flycatcher’ and then you start learning it because Merlin tells you.”
For more information, visit http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org.
2. eBird
Merlin is great for bird identification, but for birders who would like to participate as citizen scientists, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology manages eBird.
eBird allows users to participate in collecting data such as species distribution, abundance, habitat use and trends.
Fraser said many experienced birders are likely already familiar with the app.
“Birdwatchers go birdwatching and then submit their list of the species they saw to eBird. It can be a single bird. If you see a bird, you can submit it to eBird as a sighting. Or you can go to Buttertubs, do a walk-around and then submit a list of the 24 species we saw at Buttertubs this morning. You can include photos and audio recordings if you want, but that’s not required – you can just record what you saw.”
The app also allows users to look up specific locations, such as Beban Park or Buttertubs Marsh, and view a list of birds seen there during specific time periods.
“Or I could say I want to look up Brent Geese and just see all the Brent Geese sightings and they’ll be shown on a map.”
In early May, Fraser had two friends from Ontario visiting who wanted to see a MacGillivray’s Warbler. Using the app, Fraser was able to find recent sightings of the bird just off Extension Road.
“We drive right up to this spot, get out of the car and of course the first bird we hear is the MacGillivray’s Warbler. We sniffed around and sure enough, we could see them.”
For more information, visit http://ebird.org.
3. iNaturalist
iNaturalist is the app for citizen science.
With iNaturalist, people can take photos or audio recordings of animals, fungi and plants and then upload them to the app, which uses crowdsourcing to identify the images. By location-tagging the uploaded images, researchers can gain information about local animal and plant populations.
“Let’s say there’s a researcher out there studying the distribution and reproductive activity of moon snails. He looks in this database for data on moon snails,” Fraser said. “He studies it closely and uses it to inform his research.”
The Yellow Point Ecological Society uses the app at its annual BioBlitz event, where local residents compete for prizes based on the results of their posted observations. Nicola Toxopeus, a board member of the ecological society, previously told the News Bulletin that she personally uses the app to see where invasive broom is located in Holland Creek Park.
“Thousands of researchers use iNaturalist’s data to analyze what’s happening in the environment,” said Toxopeus. “Personally, I use it because I’m very passionate about protecting special places.”
For more information, visit http://inaturalist.org.
4. Seek by iNaturalist
For those who don’t want to contribute but want easy identification, there is Seek by iNaturalist.
“It’s basically the same as iNaturalist, but it’s designed as an app to help people identify things, rather than a citizen scientist app to submit observations,” Fraser said. “If people really just want to figure out what things are and don’t want to get into too much detail, maybe they should use Seek.”
Using iNaturalist’s data catalog, the app will use image recognition technology to help identify plants or animals depicted. It will also provide lists of common insects, birds, plants and amphibians found in the region.
For more information, visit http://inaturalist.org/pages/seek_app.
