19 Dec 10 Apps for Nature
Before you drive off into the wild to get away from incoming phone calls and emails, make sure to load your device with these Ten Best Nature Apps so you can properly translate Mother’s Nature’s messages.
Who doesn’t want to know the names of the Constellations when they are so clear above? Or whether those red berries are poisonous and the remedy for eating poisonous red berries. Here are ten best digital tools for navigating the wide open country that probably didn’t exist the last time you were there, and will let you see life a whole different way.
The mobile information toolkit will transform the weakest of weekend warriors into the strongest of nature savvy swashbucklers by equipping them with encyclopedic knowledge of their surroundings.
10. Camping List Pro App | iTunes
Pack for adventures using Camping List App + which is never going to forget anything on your list, which I supplement in the editor page because of my wildcrafting needs, moss hunting passions and remote mining camp dump digging adventures. Camping List App + is the best and most affordable way to keep your camping list organized.
9. Spyglass – A Compass App
Spyglass is a fantastic app for the iPhone that uses a compass image which is laid over the image coming from the video camera. This makes navigation easy to a particular point you can see in the distance. Also if you hold the phone flat the compass is laid over the top of Google Earth Maps so you can locate your position and calculate your speed and potential arrival time. It even has an inclinometer, which is incredibly handy for hikers. Other useful tools are: a hi-tech viewfinder, milspec compass, gyrocompass, maps, GPS tracker, speedometer, sniper’s rangefinder, sextant, gyro horizon, inclinometer, angular calculator and 5x zoom camera.
You can even integrate this app with park maps of the terrain you are exploring – using this app makes it easy to find your favourite fishing hole.
8. Park Maps App
Parks Canada has a selection of maps and apps that are downloadable from their site with all the greatest spots around for camping and fishing. Integrate one of these maps with the Spyglass app above and you’ve got your weekend plans set for a trip out of town, and you’ll be certain to get exactly where you’re going.
7. Fish Hunter App
Plan on living off the land? Use the free FishHunter mobile fishing app to help catch your daily meals. The $229 sonar attachment is changing recreational fishing as veterans teach themselves how to fish again.
With the FishHunter sonar gizmo any canoeist can easily glimpse life under the surface of the lake before he or she sets up camp. Exhausted after canoeing all day the team leader can deploy the floatation device near curious shorelines to find interesting structure for game fish, or what he or she perceives to be the best marine habitat for whatever type of marine creature the group is angling. When users spot something magnificent, great architecture for fish below the surface of the lake, they should stop there for the night, and fish for their dinner as they listen to nature.
FishHunter is packed with data about various species to study and learn alongside precious user submitted information that other successful fishermen have shared in the same region. When other users log and make public their catch information they help create what is fast becoming a vast library of helpful empiric data to aid other future fishermen who happen to be out exploring the same rivers and lakes, all over the world.
FishHunter repurposed military technology originally developed for the US Navy. The floating device transmits wireless via BlueTooth to a phone and paints an accurate picture of the lakebed on the user’s screen.
6. Leafsnap
Take a picture of a leaf, upload it and this impressive new app will identify it. To develop this application with such a high degree of accuracy, collaborators from Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institute used mild controversial face recognition technology to create a vast and widely approved-of database of tree leaf images with which users’ photos can now be matched.
The image library is scrollable too, and is rich with information and includes almost all species of North American trees. Note: Leaves must be photographed against a white background in order for the app to work, so grab a piece of scrap paper or a napkin before heading out on the trail. (Free)
5. WeBIRD - A Bird Song ID app
Is Digital Bird Song Identification finally a reality? … No. Even since the introduction of the smartphone app Shazam, when held up to nearly any piece of recorded music can quickly and seemingly miraculously name the song and artist, tech loving birdwatchers have been clamoring for something similar for bird vocalizations. They imagine a computer program that could identify a bird in the field simply by analyzing a short recording. It would revolutionize birding in a way not seen since the advent of the binocular.
For years such a device was prohibitively difficult to implement for fairly obvious reasons. Birds apparently have myriad different vocalization; apparently songbirds make music that is neither predictable nor repeatable. But a man named Mark Berres, an ornithologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, thinks he’s finally cracked the code with WeBIRD, the Wisconsin Electronic Bird Identification Resource Database.
Bird Song Id helps you identify birds by their songs and calls, and lets you make your own recordings too. It is available in smartphone and tablet formats. An audiovisual library of 133 species is included.
4. Roger’s Mushrooms Or Wild Mushrooms of North America and Europe
This popular iPhone application is based on the work of Roger Phillips as presented on this website.
The app lists over 1550 different varieties of mushrooms and with the app on phone you don’t have to be connected to the web to search the database ,so you really can use it out in the field where there are no cell towers.
The application features a comprehensive series of 2,400 photographs illustrating wild mushrooms and other fungi; from edible to hallucinogenic and poisonous. All the specimens have been collected in the wild by Roger and other senior mycologists from both America and Europe.
Detailed photographs show each mushroom from many different angles and there is a lot of information to help with identification; descriptive keys, details of size, shape color and habitat. There is also a symbol on each picture to quickly give you the idea of danger or edibility. Many different groups of mushrooms are included; cup fungi, puffballs, tree brackets, truffles and other underground forms. The common and important English, French and German names for the different mushrooms are used together with the Latin names.
Roger Phillip’s guide includes a searchable database of mushrooms with photos and important details like each fungus’s location, normal size, and edibility. You can also locate the unknown mushrooms you encounter with a visual key or filtered search. The lite version is free, but considering the possible consequences of eating an unknown mushroom, it might be worth springing for the $1.99 full version, which includes more listings.
3. Butterfly Collection App
This $1.99 app is as beautiful as it is useful. An elegant index of butterflies fills the home screen. Scroll for more index pages or tap the butterfly that you want to identify. You’ll get an animated close up of the illustrated butterfly and learn its name.
This elegantly simple app allows you to hold 10 trays of butterfly samples in the palm of your hand. Scroll through the collection to find the butterflies you’ve observed, then click to identify and animate them. ($1.99)
2. Animal Tracks App
Fore and Hind tracks of over 40 animals commonly found in North America. A complete description of each animal along with track size and gait patterns used. After success on iphone – now on your Android!
1. Star Walk App
A must for camping out or just taking a late night stroll, Star Walk ensures you’ll never look up at the cosmos again and wonder what the heck you’re seeing. Hold your iPhone toward the sky and in real time, the app identifies the stars, planets, and constellations you’re viewing. Click on a heavenly body for detailed information and coordinates. ($2.99. Note: Motion tracking technology works only on the 3GS or higher.)