[bakerite]

I was hanging with my friend Jim yesterday and he shows me this app on his phone, Merlin from Cornell U. It is a great app for identifying birds. It tracks your location, then asks you questions about the bird you are trying to I.D., then gives you a list of possible species. There is information about all the birds and recording of songs. While sitting on the deck I identified a couple of birds we had just seen, nothing happened with the Harrier, but when I played the songs of the House Wren, he landed on the chair right besides us. (I think he may have been checking out prospective mates, and was out of luck).

So my question of the day, what other phone apps are you using while enjoying the outdoors?

 

[Tom House]

From the University of Washington Herbarium at the Burke Museum. Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest.

From the The Oregon Flora Project at Oregon State University. Oregon Wildflowers


TC

 

[Bajema]

Merlin is a cool app. Birds Near Me is another interesting one that shows you what birds people have seen near you recently.

 

[creekx]

Nice. Will give that a try.

My latest toy is the Earthmate App from Delorme:

https://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtdItemDetail.jsp?item=35408&section=10900/

My iPhone 6 with a LifeProof case is now an awesome GPS. The real selling point for me was being able to download and store topo, USGS, and aerial images of my destinations. No cell or data service required to view maps after you've saved them to the phone. On a recent trip through Wyoming and Montana we were able to plan and track hiking/fishing routes without cell service. It was really useful on a remote 16 mile float through private land. Had not done the float before, but we were able to track our progress to the take out.

It may not have all of the features of a high-end GPS device, but having a 5" color display and choice of background maps makes it fun and useful. Also, it operates in "airplane" mode so battery life was not an issue.

 

[DWT]

Fun little tool. I have used it for a few years now and most of the time I have been able to identify an unknown bird.

 

[Don Freeman]

I was hanging with my friend Jim yesterday and he shows me this app on his phone, Merlin from Cornell U.

Thanks, downloaded it immediatley