myNaturalist app for iPhone and iPad

324 different consensus birding checklists, empirical birding checklists for any area based on millions of observations, 1000s of bird images provided by a popular search engine, 1000s of detail descriptions of species via embedded Wikipedia articles and locations of over 6400 world wide parks and refuges are just of a few of the features of the myNaturalist app.

The myNaturalist app on the iPad is like traveling with a trained naturalist. It can create a list of the five most common hawks found at your current location. It can show you a list of all the perching birds that are about the same size as a Blue Jay. It can show you, using iPad maps, where other people have seen wildlife nearby. Using images provided by a popular search engine it can help you compare side by side images of, for example, Red-tail Hawks and Coopers Hawks. Using the embedded Wikipedia entries, it can let you compare the detail descriptions of, for example, the Common Goldeneye and the Barrows Goldeneye. If you are in New York, myNaturalist will tell you the hawk on the pole is 25 times more likely to be a Red-tailed Hawk than a Red-shouldered Hawk. However, if you were in Florida, it would be 4 times more likely to be a Red-shouldered Hawk than a Red-tailed Hawk.

myNaturalist will also help you record your observations. An Identification Wizard is available to help you identify candidates, based upon type of species, size, frequency of occurrence, and taxonomy. Once you have a list of candidates myNaturalist will guide you to images or Wikipedia articles so you can complete the identification. Once you have made you identification myNaturalist will create a complete record of your sighting, including species, taxonomy, time and date, exact location, and postal address, where available. iTunes can be used to transfer you life list to your computer.

myNaturalist has detailed information about the over 10,000 birds found on the IOC World List. This includes the common English name, the taxonomy (class name, family name, order name, scientific name), size, conservation status, and distribution by political subdivisions, including most countries and states and provinces in North America. It has augmented the 324 consensus birding checklist with this information.

myNaturalist has incorporated the millions of bird sightings found in eBird. These sightings are stored on an Internet Server and are automatically accessed when you move into a new area.

Many of myNaturalist features do not depend upon having an active Internet connection. It is not possible to load new information from the Internet if there is not an active Internet connection. This means, for example, that you can only review previously loaded Wikipedia articles if there is not an active Internet connection.

This is the point in the description where we are suppose to claim that myNaturalist is fun and easy to use. We would rather you decide for yourself. After all, it is a free app!