These 4 Apps Can Help You Enjoy Outdoor Activities Even More

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.

Apps for outdoor use can be unnecessary. I like to spend time without my phone when I can. But sometimes it’s fun to learn about nature while I’m out there. Here are the apps I’ve found the most useful.

Merlin bird identity

this Magic app This app identifies almost any bird you see or hear. It’s a free and fun way to identify birds, whether you’re out for a walk or at home and curious. When I tried similar services before the pandemic, they felt impractical or broken.

Merlin is fast, ad-free, and reliable. It’s also easy to use. Open the app on any iOS or Android device and you’ll be presented with four options.

1. Bird exploration. If you just want to learn about birds, this option lets you browse the list, read short descriptions, and listen to recordings of bird sounds.
2. Bird photography.Take or upload a photo. Merlin will recognize it in seconds.
3. Description of a bird.Answer a few multiple-choice questions about the bird’s size, color, activity, and location, and Merlin will suggest what the bird might be like.
4. voiceYou can identify birds by recording a small audio clip, even if you’re not close to them. This is my favorite feature because I usually can’t get close enough – and lack the patience and skill – to take high-quality bird photos.

Merlin and its sister app,E-birdare projects of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. You can use eBird to track the birds you’ve spotted and share your sightings with the world’s largest community of birdwatchers. Since I don’t keep bird lists, I only use Merlin to identify birds I hear or see. It works best in quiet places. Background noise makes it difficult to use while walking in city parks.

Requests

a point Requests Whenever you see any plant, flower, insect or animal, the app magically identifies it. I love discovering new flowers, exotic insects and identifying unique species. The app collects no user data and has no ads. It doesn’t even require registration. It’s free for iOS and Android. Seek was created by Inaturalista joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society.

Results vary depending on how close you are to the screen, the amount of light, and how good your phone’s camera is. I was surprised at how quickly the app could tell what I was looking at.

I sometimes feel conflicted about using the Seek app with my wife and daughters because we prefer to be away from screens outdoors. After using it extensively at the beginning of the pandemic, we use it more selectively now, especially when we spot something interesting that we want to remember or learn more about.

Audubon Bird Guide

this Classic Field Guide Free for iOS and Android. It has more detailed bird information than Merlin for those who want to dig deeper. The app lets you identify birds by their size, color, habitat, wing shape, tail shape, call type, or activity, so you don’t have to take a photo or record audio. If you prefer to enjoy nature without technology, you can open the app later to learn more about what you saw or heard.

Wingspan

This game has 170 awesome game cardsEach of these games features a unique bird. You can learn about these birds while playing this cleverly designed strategy game. It took my family several hours to understand the complex game, but now we love it.

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.