Naturalist Apps: Field Crew Favourites for Exploring Outside

Published by Mary Nightingale on 06/25/2025 07/03/2025

Did you know that you can make important contributions to science simply by using your phone? Becoming a Citizen Scientist doesn’t have to be hard. By using a few apps, you can participate in plant, animal and fungi research with ease. Whether you are an avid birder, curious hiker, or amateur photographer, these naturalist apps can make your everyday explorations more exciting while contributing to important research projects around the world.

Becoming a Citizen Scientist

What does it mean to be a Citizen Scientist? Citizen science helps communities to connect with the world around them, while filling gaps in data collection. While citizen science can make great contributions on a large scale, for us at the Conservancy, your participation could help to spot a new invasive species before it becomes a big problem, protect at-risk native species, and generally build our community’s understanding of the local environment.

Seek

This app is great for anyone who is excited to learn more about plant, animal and fungi identification. Open the app, point your camera, and Seek will work to start figuring out what you are looking at. You do not need to be logged into an account, and you do not need data or Wi-Fi for it to work. This is a great option for someone looking to make quick observations on the go. If you decide to create an account, you can save your observations to refer back to and collect virtual badges, challenging you to make species observation into a game!

Our summer EcoTechs are big fans of Seek and use it frequently to confirm plants in our restoration sites. It has been a great tool to watch the plants as they grow during the year.

iNaturalist

This app connects your nature finds with masters in the field. When you upload a photo, experts will review your observations and confirm what you are seeing. Uploading observations can be an amazing way to hone your species identification skills. It’s like having a nature guide in your back pocket!

Not only can you use this as a learning tool, but you are also helping track environmental trends. iNaturalist is especially good for monitoring for things like rare species. It can let scientists know that there are at-risk species in a specific area that need protecting. It may also be good for early detection of invasive species that need to be tackled. For example, the Conservancy has been watching for out burr chervil on SḴŦAḴ | Mayne Island, and up until this year, we only knew of one instance of it. With the help of landholders, we have detected another patch. With early knowledge of the spread of species like this, we can hope to tackle it before it grows out of control (cough, cough… Scotch broom!).

iNaturalist also sorts observations into projects. These projects may be species specific or location specific. Recently I had one of my sea star observations added to the “Tracking Starfish Wasting and Recovery” project. This means my discoveries during low tide adventures are now helping with research in wasting disease and recovery efforts for sea stars. So cool!

*When making observations to iNaturalist, try to use clear photographs and add date/time/location information to your observation. This helps your post achieve “research grade” status. If aren’t sure what you are looking at, the app will offer suggestions to help other observers get close and confirm an identification. No need to be an expert, just take a photo to get started.

Merlin Bird ID

This one is all about the birds! Have you ever wondered what birds you are listening to? Merlin answers just that. When you hear a bird song, pop into the app and start a sound recording. The app will let you know who is singing around you on the spot. This is my favourite way to use the app, but it features other helpful tools for birders and non-birders alike.

If you’ve recently seen a bird, you can use the “step-by-step” tool to learn which bird you may have spotted. It will ask you about things like size and colour and then show pictures of matching birds that frequent your area. If you have a photo, even better. You can add your photo in the app to see identification suggestions as well. If you’re wondering what a bird sounds like, they have tons of sound clips, complete with information profiles, pictures, and habitat ranges for your learning pleasure.

Just like iNaturalist and Seek, you can keep a running list of the birds you’ve seen. It’s a great way to refer back and to brag to your friends too.

eBird

For the enthusiastic birder, eBird is a platform to share your bird observations with researchers by completing bird counts in a specific time and area. While still a user-friendly app, eBird is completed like a scientific survey, therefore a bit more rigorous than some of the other apps. It’s a great option for organizing bird counts with friends and community groups. eBird’s data base informs research worldwide, providing insight on distribution, migration patterns, and populations of birds. Head over to eBird’s website to explore some the interesting maps created from citizen science data.

Happy exploring!